A Certain Out of Place Exorcist
by StoriedMagi
Summary: Follow up to a Certain Genderbent story, follows a... slight rewrite to the Deep Blood Arc. Small Char limit so no summary, but please enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

It was a dark, windowless room completely devoid of what one would call natural light.

It was an isolated room, with no way to enter or exit it except via a certain level 4 esper's teleportation ability.

The building that contained the room was a tower made up of materials that have been known to deflect impacts from tactical railguns and could survive nuclear fallout.

It could have been said that this room was the most impenetrable of fortresses in the known world.

"This is quite a gloomy place you have here… You know that right?"

It was in such a room that the female magician known as Styx Magnus found herself.

Styx was a fourteen year old who was well-versed in runic magician and possessed an affinity for fire magic. She was also, almost ironically, an Anglican nun who also killed other magicians on a regular basis.

Truthfully, she should not have been where she was at all. Not just in that particular room, or the building that contained that room, but rather she should not have been in the city the building that contained the room was in.

Styx was currently a member of a magic organization known as "Necessarius", the Church of Necessary Evil, a branch of the Anglican Church that specialized in fighting other magic organizations by using magic.

The city that contained the building that contained the room she was in was Academy City, a purely scientific city that rejected the utter idea of the supernatural and magic, and rather specialized in producing espers via the use of drugs and body manipulation.

As such, Styx's very presence in this city was like a book of magic spells being on the same bookshelf as books about quantum physics. It was unnatural, unexpected, and irritating.

However, as always, there was a perfectly good reason for her unnatural, unexpected, and irritating presence in this city.

Styx was currently acting as a liaison for her church and the magic side in general in order to negotiate with the head of Academy City on a close to equal footing.

However, as far as representatives go, she was a clearly poor choice.

True, she was a girl who could and would kill any number of normal people without a second's hesitation and was able to hold her own in battles against other magicians with little effort.

Yet despite all that, she was still fazed by the scene around her.

The area she was in was so large that Styx found it hard to describe it as an in-door area. There were supposedly no normal lighting fixtures within it, but the room was somehow being lit from the numerous flashing screens and buttons from the machinery all over the room. Thousands of flashing electrical cables and glowing tubes of liquid were gathering toward the center of the room like blood vessels racing towards the heart of a body.

And the 'heart' in this case was an enormous glowing cylinder that stood in the exact center of the room.

It was a cylinder that was four meters in diameter and just over ten meters in height. It was made of a special reinforced glass and filled with a strange red liquid.

Supposedly, the color of the liquid was supposed to be that of a weakly alkaline recovery fluid, but to a magician like Styx, whose area of expertise did not include the science behind such things, it looked disturbingly like blood.

Inside the cylindrical tube of blood red liquid, a human wearing a green surgical cloak floated upside down with a smile.

There was no word beside "human" that Styx could have used to describe the human that was in that tube. They were a silver-haired "human" that appeared to be a beautiful woman but also somewhat masculine; like an adult but also somewhat childlike; like a holy saint but also the most depraved criminal.

Styx briefly wondered if the human in front of her had simply obtained all of the possibilities that a human could be, or had they given up on all those possibilities in an attempt to obtain something more?

Whatever the answer was, the only word that Styx could have used to describe this human was "human".

"All those who have come here before you and have observed me have all come up with an explanation similar to yours, so it is not something you need to spend too much time on."

The "human" in the cylinder spoke as if they had read Styx's mind with a knowing smile on their face.

"Now then… I suppose you'd want to know why I called you here then..."

The General Director of Academy City, the "human" named Aleistera, spoke with a stern tone that was filled with a lightheartedness that threw Styx off whenever she heard it.

"There is a situation that has arisen that has become too complicated for me to act freely in."

"…This is regarding the Gray Matter, if I am correct in guessing?"

Gray Matter: The Source and Destroyer of Darkness.

It was not a name Styx had heard from Academy City but rather from a Roman Catholic Inquisitor.

It was a name Styx had heard before but had never grown familiar with. It was not due to a lack of interest in the name but rather a greater interest in the context the name had been used. Due to that context, Styx could only assume that this power was great.

And now that same power was now in the hands of a magician like her.

Aleistera, in the meanwhile, nodded their head, which was a bit disorientating for Styx who was right side up compared to Aleistera's upside down

"This situation wouldn't be a problem if it were an esper-only issue, because it would be one of the espers that I 'owned' so to speak. As long as it's a citizen of this city that creates a commotion in it, there would be at least 70,632 ways to handle it and clean up..."

"..."

Briefly noticing that the human in front of her had dodged around the issue, Styx felt no emotion invoked from the explanation. She was utterly uninterested in Academy City procedure and was only listening so as not to appear rude.

The human did not seem to notice Styx's disinterest, yet changed the subject anyway.

"...The complication in the situation arose because there is now a magician that has decided to take part when they shouldn't have. Now, because the enemy is an 'outsider' to this city, it has become troublesome for me to freely deal with the situation. Of course, it would be a trivial thing for me to send one or two of my 2.3 million espers to crush this magician. But, that isn't the main issue. The issue is that if I did that, it would mean that the Science side would have defeated magicians."

Styx slightly frowned.

Each 'world', both science and magic, had a sphere of influence that they adhered to.

"ESP" and "Magic"… it was because both of these sides had monopolized the technologies and abilities used to create their powers that they could keep their positions in the world stable and not be at each other's neck on a regular basis.

If Academy City, which controlled "espers" and science, declared that they had defeated a "magician", the Magic side would not remain silent, regardless of whether or not the magician was of good standing with the magic side.

Science defeating Magic would basically mean that science had somehow analyzed and found a weakness within magic.

It was like one country had defeated a rouge agent from another, and then analyzed the technology that the agent had used to fight. It would be indirect espionage.

Considering this, Styx formed a question in her mind.

Two weeks ago, she had entered Academy City, unannounced, and fought, and lost to, an esper. So, if a magician being in Academy City was such a problem to this human, why was that battle allowed to happen with no apparent intervening what so ever?

Perhaps, outside of Styx's limited knowledge about that situation, that girl and the human in front of her had come to some sort of an agreement to prevent any backlash.

Or perhaps maybe it was because that girl was a 'Level 0' like she had said, and thus held little importance in the grand scheme of things.

That was that situation however, and this was this situation.

Styx, being a magician, had no problems fighting another magician. As long as a magician was at least related to another's defeat, the Magic side would be satisfied.

Aleistera waved their hand in front of them in a somewhat summoning motion.

"Here is some information about the 'battlefield' the magician has taken over."

It was unknown to Styx what technology was used to form the holographic display in that darkness, but an image with computer like graphics showed a picture of a seemingly normal building.

The words "Misawa Cram School" were written on the corner of the picture.

"Through the building blueprints we have on file and the various satellite images we've taken over the years, we have analyzed the interior layout of the building. However, being the science side, we cannot predict the magic equipment that could be inside, since we have no understanding of magic. Also, it appears that this Misawa Cram School is unique compared to those found elsewhere."

"..."

The human spoke in a calm and informative tone that clearly explained the information, yet just underneath it she could detect a slight mocking.

Apparently the Misawa family of cram schools were high level schools that catered to all levels of society in Japan. This Cram School had been set up in Academy City with the expected goal of uncovering the secrets of esper development that Academy City held a monopoly on.

However this version of the school had a series of strange events going on around it and it had recently broken off ties with the main branch of the company.

These series of strange events included the theft of Gray Matter.

"Why would Misawa Cram School bother to steal the Gray Matter? While I don't know what it does, I doubt that it would be worth making an enemy of the Roman Catholic Church."

Alesitera chuckled as she scrolled through the various screens in front of her.

"I'm sure you can realize what the actions of Misawa Cram can easily denote. I'm certain the only reason they took the Gray Matter was because their plans relate to those."

Styx sighed as she looked back at the screens moving in front of her.

"Those" things… those were the things through which she had first heard about Gray Matter. Golems that were insanely strong and could easily kill unwary magicians without a second of thought. They were called…

"Akuma… correct?"

The human within the cylinder grinned devilishly.

"Yes. Gray Matter is the easiest way to destroy Akuma, so it follows that by removing Gray Matter from the equation means that Misawa Cram is working on something related to Akuma."

"Che…"

Styx clicked her tongue and looked at the screens yet again.

She had been afraid of something like this. She would be charging into a completely unknown situation where she would be horribly outnumbered and facing off against those horrid creations without any hope of back up. Even though she was in a city with 2.3 million espers, not a single one of them would help her fight.

"You will not quite be fighting alone."

Again, Aleistera spoke as if they could read Styx's mind. Perhaps somewhere in this room was a machine that could analyze someone's thoughts based upon body temperature or by perspiration, or some other idiocy.

"There is one esper who I believe would have no problem fighting a magician. I believe you know them quite well."

Styx froze as an image of a black haired girl came into her head.

The Imagine Breaker.

That was the name of the power the Styx had fought and lost against two weeks prior. All supernatural powers, regardless whether they were magic, ESP, or a miracle of God were negated upon contact with that girls left hand. Such a power could be considered an exception among exceptions.

Yet there was one foreseeable problem.

"Didn't you say that an esper beating a magician would be a bad thing? Why in the world would you even ask for a magician if an esper would be suitable!?"

Aleistara grinned almost devilishly as she looked at Styx's obvious outburst.

"My, quite protective of her aren't you. Well you seem to have forgotten that a magician is needed to stop another magician in order to prevent a war between our two sides. I am simply trying to make your job a little easier."

Styx balled her hands into a fist as she looked at the human floating in front of her.

True, she was being overly protective of a girl she had met and fought against two weeks earlier, but rather that doing it for the girl, she was rather doing it for the person that the girl was protecting. An image of boy with silver haired filled her mind at that moment.

The human within the cylinder smiled.

"Are you worried about the Imagine Breaker somehow synthesizing a magic spell? Strange. I had thought you had figured out that the Imagine Breaker couldn't use magic."

Styx stood there, silent, for the longest time, before sighing.

"Fine… I'll play your game for now."

The human within the cylinder clapped their hands together and smiled.

"Excellent. I'm expecting for this to be resolved as soon as possible."

Styx grimaced but said nothing.

Even though she did not want to endanger that girl over something so trivial, she had little choice.

No matter how trivial the situation, without proper backup, Styx would probably end up dead due to some stupid mistake. That was not a chance she wanted to take under any circumstances.

The director of Academy City smiled at Styx's silence.

"So tell me magician. Is there anything you wish to know?"

"… Tell me. Gray Matter is supposed to be the natural enemy of Akuma, yet I don't know much about it. Is there anything you can tell me about it? I would hate to die just because I had not information on an unknown power."

Aleistera grinned.

"Well... it is impossible for me to say what Gray Matter can really do, since I am not a magician, but I can tell you what one of my contacts told me about it once."

Styx felt as though the air had frozen over in the room. It was strange, seeing as how she was comfortable a few seconds earlier.

"The Gray Matter… let me think…"

The smile of Aleistera sent a chill up Styx's spine.

"It isn't impossible to say that the Gray Matter is a threat to the entire world just through its existence."


	2. A Certain Out of Place Exorcist

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

"To think that one simple reference book would cost 3,600 yen… such misfortune..."

As Kamijou Touka had learned in her short, two week existence was that one of the best ways to understand a person was to examine their bookshelf.

The date was August 8th, and Kamijou Touka had spent a better part of the morning looking around 'her' room and found out that she could not find a single book that was in any way, shape or form, related to studying. The best she could find was a few magazines that covered some last minute studying tips, but those were juxtaposed with articles such as "How to pick up a foreign guy without speaking his language" or "How to know your partner is cheating on you".

Thus, in order to save 'her' face, Kamijou Touka had decided to head to a nearby bookstore to purchase some reference books to populate 'her' barren shelves.

However, according to the shop attendant who was manning that practically torn up shop, almost every reference book had been sold at half price up until yesterday for the oncoming summer exams, and now that the exams were almost here, the ones that were left were being sold at a premium.

It was truly an unfortunate situation. However, this was apparently the essence of Kamijou's everyday life.

But to explain why Kamijou was referring to herself using quotes and using vague words to explain her life, it was a simple, yet complicated reason.

It was because Kamijou Touka had lost all of her memories two weeks ago.

To be more precise, she had lost her episodic memories, or memories of events, and not her knowledge of things.

She still knew how to use a cell phone, but she would wonder "Where did I put my phone?" or "When did I get a phone?"

It was because she had lost her memories that she spent the better part of the morning looking around her room, only to go down to the local bookstore and buy an overpriced reference book.

She had been desperate to find out about the person she was before she lost her memories, so she had relied on some fuzzy logic like 'what someone had on their bookshelf.' And from what she found, all it had done was made her feel slightly disgusted with her former self.

"…Touka… what's the matter…?"

Walking beside Kamijou on that hot summer day, the half-dead boy spoke in a tired, heat exhausted manner.

The boy was around 13 or 14 years old, and one could instantly tell that he was, without a doubt, foreign.

He had extremely short silver hair that barely poked out from under his strange looking hat, as well as skin that was white as snow, with emerald green eyes to boot. However, even without all that, there was a plainly obvious foreignness in his outfit. The boy wore a Christian priest's habit that was uniquely white with gold lacings.

The boy's name was Index, and of course that was a fake name. However, that was the only name Kamijou knew him by, so that is what she called him.

Kamijou had met Index in a hospital two weeks ago; or rather it was where the current Kamijou had meet Index.

Apparently, the two of them had meet prior to that meeting, yet since Kamijou had lost all her memories prior to two weeks ago, she could not for the life of her remember who this boy was to her.

The day Kamijou had first met him, Index had cried tears of despair when Kamijou "pretended" to forget about him. However, his tears were not shed for the Kamijou who had been sitting in that hospital bed who had been, "apparently" oblivious, but for the Kamijou he had met before then.

Kamijou somehow could not bear to see the expression she saw that day on that boy's face, so instead of telling the boy the truth, she instead chose to protect that boy's fragile hopes and formed a façade of the Kamijou from before her memory loss.

It was not something she enjoyed doing, and every night she felt a tremendous guilt in her stomach that almost made her want to tell the boy the truth.

Yet the smile that greeted her every morning made her able to bear that feeling longer and longer.

So she continued with her façade, not knowing anything about herself, or the boy whom she so desperately wanted to protect.

But even though she did not remember anything about herself or her connection with this boy, Kamijou still felt horrible in dragging him around in this heat.

"Index… You know we can stop somewhere if you aren't feeling well."

Even though it looked like he would drop any second, the boy smiled at Kamijou in an almost reassuring way.

"Don't worry… about me… A little heat… will not kill me…"

"But you look like you will die any second. Are you really sure you're okay?"

"…"

"Umm… Index?"

"…"

The boy had a glazed look over his eyes and he was focused on something else. Curious, Kamijou followed his gaze to an ice cream shop that advertised the many different flavors it had in store.

It was obvious to Kamijou that the heat was affecting Index, who was dressed in that many layered habit that even on a cool day Kamijou would have called hot and stuffy, and he was already suffering from the symptoms of a heat stroke.

Yet, even though the sweat was pouring down Index's face, he did not say one word in complaint or protest, almost like a true saint. However this only served to make Kamijou feel horrible for dragging him around.

"If you want Index, we can get some ice cream if you want. I already spent a bunch of money on this book, so a little bit more won't kill me."

Even though Kamijou said that, she had already spent almost her entire week's food budget on this stupid book, and barely had enough money to feed the both of them for the night, much less the rest of the week.

Index was slowly drawn out of his daze and began to chuckle.

"Touka, even if I wanted to waste the rest of your money, I'm a priest in training. Besides cigarettes and wine, I'm forbidden from consuming any luxury goods like coffee, red tea, and sweets."

Kamijou bit her lower lip and looked at the ice cream shop again. When people usually adhered to religious principles, it was impossible to change their minds. But…

"Are you sure? I mean you're in training. No one will blame you if you just happen to eat ice cream on a hot day."

Index had a blank look on his face as he smiled up at Kamijou.

"Please don't try and tempt me Touka. You do not realize how much I want to run into that store and eat everything."

Kamijou almost wanted to chuckle at the situation, but the way Index was wobbling on his feet, she somehow did not want to. Before she could say anything to convince him to relax and have an ice cream, however, a mysterious, and obviously fake, Kansai accent spoke out from behind the two of them.

"Yo, sorry to disturb y'all in the middle of your important conversation, but uh… Who's that guy, Kami-chan?"

Slightly surprised, Kamijou turned around to see the person who the voice, and accent, belonged to, and Kamijou could only describe the person she saw as weird.

It was a girl around Kamijou's height and age, with long straight blue hair, and multiple ear and face piercings. She had on a white tank top that did little to hide her body due to the amount of sweat she was giving off, and Kamijou could clearly see the black bra the girl had on as well as her exposed navel. Her black cargo pants and boots gave off a sense of extreme heat to Kamijou, who was trying to dress as light as possible.

The blue haired girl looked at Kamijou like she was expecting a response, so Kamijou naturally assumed that it was possible that the two of them had some sort of relationship from before she lost her memories. However, despite this assumption, Kamijou felt the best and only thing to do at that moment was run away.

Before Kamijou could move, the blue haired girl seemed to grow tired of waiting and moved closer to Kamijou and Index.

"Hm, what's wrong, Kami-chan? Why are ya looking at me like I'm some sort of stranger? Did the summer heat get to ya head and cause ya to lose ya memories?"

"…What...?"

Kamijou tilted her head in shocked confusion, while the blue haired girl waved her hand with a chuckle.

"I'm just joking, girl~. The memory loss flag is a special privilege reserved for those who had stuff interesting going on in their lives to begin with… In other words not you."

The blue haired girl put her arm around Kamijou's shoulder (even though it was ridiculously hot out) and began to eye up Index.

"...So, Kami-chan, who's that stud with you? How did an unlucky girl like ya know such a nice looking guy? Is he ya cousin...? Doesn't look like it, cause I doubt silver hair would be in ya gene pool."

"…"

Kamijou slowly came to the realization that this girl was much more than a bit weird, and would probably hold her here for hours, going on and on about stupid things. She felt that she should come up with some sort of excuse to get away from this girl, but she did not want to be rude to a potential former friend if she could avoid it.

Meanwhile the blue haired girl was going on and on like she was in her own little world.

"...From the way I see it, what happened was that this guy must have been asking for directions from ya when I turned up, but with ya English grade being a constant F, it must be pretty hard for ya to give him an answer... Hold on though; is this guy even from an English-speaking country?"

Kamijou cautiously looked over at Index, who had his eyes slightly closed and was swaying gently in the nonexistent wind. Kamijou could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead and a small grin was crossing his face as he stood there, completely unaware of what was happening around him.

The blue haired girl still continued on, showing no signs of stopping, even for a breath.

"But really Kami-chan, even though I'm sure you just met this guy, you have to be wary of these foreign guys. They may look all nice and gentle on the outside, but hidden behind that façade are beasts that will lead you down a path of extreme perversion."

"...You're joking, right? Please don't tell me you actually think that way!"

The blue haired girl smiled gleefully at the Kamijou who had lost her temper and removed her arm from around her.

"What are ya talking about? Ya hear stories like that all the time posted on message boards and such, about nice innocent girls meeting a dreamy foreigner, and then ending up their little slut. Though knowing you and your luck, he probably has no intentions of 'that' sort of thing at all. You're probably just going along with him trying to get yourself a boyfriend before the rest of us. You sneaky gal you!"

The blue haired girl began an attempt to tickle Kamijou's stomach, while Kamijou began to blush a deep crimson, and not all because of the heat.

"Y-Y-You idiot! Who would want something like that at all!? This guy is just a freeloader! A-Free-load-er! What sort of girl would like someone like that!?"

The blue haired girl backed off and put on an expression of fake shock.

"A freeloader? Did you really just say that? Really? Truly? Then it absolutely must be something like 'that'! Oh Kamijou, you truly are underestimating the power something like the tittle of 'freeloader' has."

The blue haired girl then reached out again and pulled Kamijou close again.

"Hey, do you want some of the condoms that I keep around just cause? I'm not going to be using them any time soon, and it sounds like you will need them more than me."

Kamijou felt as if all the blood from across her body pool in her face in a mixture of rage and embarrassment.

Even though she did not have the necessary felling for it, she could not help but smile at the girl.

"Listen here, you lewd, scatterbrained little-!"

"Kami-sama… It has been 14 years and I shall be returning to you."

Kamijou wondered briefly if Index was talking to her, and so she turned just in time to see him fall face first toward the ground.

"Index!"

He was sweating profusely and he was shaking with fever. Index reached out with a weak reaching hand and grabbed Kamijou's sleeve.

"Touka… please hear my dying confession… I don't feel I will last long…"

Kamijou immediately began to panic, while the blue haired began to chuckle in glee.

"What, is he not used to the heat around here? He has to be pretty weak if this is all he can handle."

"You idiot! Help me get him inside or something!"

The blue haired girl sighed, but still reached down and put Index on her shoulder.

"You already owe me a lot Kami-chan. You really seem to like adding more stuff to the list."

Ignoring that silly girl, Kamijou lead the two of them over to the ice cream parlor, only to find a piece of paper on the door.

_To our customers,_

_Due to interior renovations, we will be suspending our business for the immediate future._

_We apologize for any inconveniences this might cause._

From the depths of his heat stroke, Index managed to speak out.

"My first sin is for seeing Touka naked."

The blue haired girl had a surprised look on her face before turning to Kamijou with a fully serious one.

"Seriously Kami-chan, do you want those condoms? It really sounds like you need them."

Kamijou looked up to the sky and screamed out.

"Such Misfortune!"

* * *

After a few minutes of searching, Kamijou and the blue haired girl finally managed to find a fast food restaurant that would allow Index to rest in. However, the shop was crowded with people because of the summer heat.

"... Such misfortune."

Holding a tray with three shakes on it in both of her hands, Kamijou looked around unhappily. She had been convinced to buy the blue haired girl a shake as well, much to Kamijou's distaste, but the girl had helped her get Index here, and so it did take the edge of her anger away.

A nearby group of female high school students around Kamijou's age sat at a table and seemed not to have a care in the world as they chatted away.

"Hey, hey! I heard that Anzai used telepathy during the last exam! Is it true?"

"Yeah, I heard that they even organized a teachers' meeting because of it, so it must be true. But, I also heard that everyone at the meeting agreed that since esper powers are part of the Curriculum, it isn't considered cheating."

"THAT'S SO UNFAIR! I WANT TO USE MY POWER AS WELL!"

"Isn't your power pyro kinesis though?"

"…Can't I just set fire to the teacher's back and force him to give me the answers?"

Anywhere else in the world, such a conversation would have been too far out of the ordinary.

But, as with many things in Academy City, out of the ordinary was the norm. Many of the 2.3 million "students" of this city had some sort of extra sensory power, so it was more fitting to say that it was a large-scale "power development group".

Kamijou was no exception to this. She supposedly possessed a power called the "Imagine Breaker" in her left hand that could somehow negate every supernatural power, regardless of its origin. She had yet to test this out, but she was in no rush to considering the other crazy powers in this city.

Sighing to herself, Kamijou began to shove her way through the crowd careful not to drop the tray of milkshakes. She had, almost unwillingly, left it up to the blue haired girl to find a table for the three of them since Kamijou was the buying the refreshments for them, and, considering the crowd, Kamijou expected zero luck.

There was a sudden break in the crowd and she came out by a four seat table already occupied by three people. On one side of the table were the waving, smiling blue haired girl and a somewhat lucent Index.

On the other side of it was a boy with spiky silver hair, dressed in a strange hot looking outfit. It was an all-black trench coat with silver lining running all over it. He had on a single white glove over his left hand and, from what Kamijou could see, a pair of long black slacks. The boy had his head in his arms so Kamijou could not see his face, but from the scant skin that Kamijou could see, she could tell that he was a foreigner like Index.

At that moment, something in Kamijou's head went off and made her truly want to run away at that moment. It wasn't a feeling of life threatening danger, but one of intense, impending misfortune.

She could not explain it, but it was a feeling that was strangely familiar to her. It made feel like she would run to the end of the earth to escape this feeling, regardless of the peril.

However, Kamijou could not see any way to avoid this, seeing as Index did not look at all ready to go back out into the heat, and from the way the blue haired girl was looking over the boy across from her, it seemed dangerous to leave them alone.

Besides, she thought as she stepped toward the table, nothing all that bad could happen.

The second Kamijou took that step toward the table, the boy's head shot up and he began to rub both sides of his head in a frustrated motion.

"Why in the world did I spend all of my money!?"

Kamijou literally jumped when boy shouted out, but due to the noise of the surrounding restaurant, she seemed to be the only one to be surprised.

When Kamijou had regained her composure, she noticed that both the blue haired girl and Index were looking over at her, like she was the one who was acting crazy.

"Ummm…What in the world are you two looking at me for?"

The blue hair girl put on a false lecturing pose as she sat.

"Kami-chan, when someone talks to ya, ya should make an effort to reply back."

Index nodded his head in a lazy agreement.

"That's right Touka. Regardless of how strange people are, it is up to us to follow God's teachings and reach out to them."

Kamijou's eye began to twitch as she felt like she was being handed the short end of the stick in this situation. Since neither of the two of them were making any effort to talk to the boy, so there must have been some unspoken agreement that it would fall to Kamijou to take care of it.

Kamijou sighed in frustration at both of them, and then turned to the boy with silver hair. He had on a unenthusiastic face and he did not seem to even notice the three people who were surrounding him.

Kamijou took this time to take a closer look at the boy's face. His hair, which Kamijou had originally thought was silver, was actually the white color of bone. He had a strange tattoo on the left side of his face, which was a upside down star and a line that went some ways down his face. Kamijou found his face to be oddly handsome.

"Umm, excuse me?"

Before Kamijou had realized, the boy had turned his head and was now looking at Kamijou with a questioning gaze.

Kamijou's face lit up.

"Ah... Erm… I-I was just wondering… Uhm… Wha-What did you mean when you said you spent all your money? That couldn't have been easy thing to do."

Unable to come up with conversation due to her embarrassment, Kamijou simply focused on the strange thing the boy had said.

The boy looked up at Kamijou for a second longer of that questioning gaze, but, after a sigh, he smiled.

"Well it wasn't really an extremely hard thing to do. I simply had a bunch of discount coupons for some hamburgers, so I went and got 30 of them."

"…What?"

Kamijou briefly wondered if she was the one suffering from a heat stroke. She took a sip of her milkshake and felt her forehead for a sign of fever before returning her attention to the boy.

"I'm sorry… but could you please tell me that again? How many hamburgers did you order?"

The white haired boy began to laugh.

"Confused, aren't you? Yeah, I ordered 30 burgers."

"Who orders so many hamburgers!? Were you feeding an army!?"

The boy continued to chuckle and he leaned back in his seat.

"Well I did go a bit crazy in eating. Heck I don't even have enough for the 400 yen ticket back to my dorm."

"I would expect so!"

Kamijou could not bear the stupidity that was being displayed here. Riding a bus or train in Academy City was pricey, so it was important to keep an eye on your finances so you don't end up stuck somewhere.

"Hmmm… You are quite cute when embarrassed and cute when your angry as well don't you know?"

Kamijou looked at the boy and saw that he had leaned down to get a better look at her face. He had a somewhat content face on when he smiled up at her.

"Hey how about we go on a date?"

Index, who had been sipping his milkshake quietly trying to recover, began to cough as if he was choking on it. The blue haired girl began to laugh and looked up at Kamijou.

"My Kami-chan aren't you popular? Do you have some sort of foreigner attracting aura or something?"

Kamijou did not answer the embarrassment to much for her to talk.

The boy chuckled at all three of their reactions before leaning back and sighing.

"Yeah right. Like anyone would go out with a penniless guy like me."

Kamijou came out of the haze of embarrassment, sighed and tried to calm herself.

"Listen… If you can't afford the 400 yen train ride, why don't you just go as far as you can afford and then walk the rest of the way? Or if you don't want to do that, then why don't you just borrow the remainder?"

The silver haired boy scratched his chin.

"Ah that would just be an unnecessary hassle. Finding someone who would let me bum 100 yen of them would be hard, unless…"

The white haired boy then looked up at Kamijou with expecting look.

"Ummm…"

Kamijou frantically backed away. She had already spent 3600 yen on that damn reference book, and had bought the three shakes for herself, Index, and that blue haired girl. Even if it was a few yen, Kamijou would have to bear a heavy burden to her finances.

"By the way."

Index, who had regained some of his composure, glared angrily at the white haired boy for some reason that Kamijou did not know.

"I've been wondering something about that cross on your clothes."

Cross? Kamijou thought as she looked down at the boy's black clothes and saw the design on the front of them.

With Kamijou's limited understanding of the English language, she could tell that some of the letters incorporated into the design were English letters, though there were some symbols that weren't in her range of knowledge.

The boy's eyebrow raised in slight surprise and he smiled across at Index.

"Oh…? What is it that you were wondering?"

Index did not return the boy's smile and simply continued to glare.

"Well I'm wondering if you know what that cross is? From the looks of it has Roman characters as well as Cyrillic and Arabic. I was wondering if you even know what that means?"

Index finally cracked a smile as he started at the shocked face of the white haired boy.

"Hah! Looks like you just thought it was some sort of interesting looking design and not some important symbol. It is actually-"

"A mixture of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Miaphysite symbols. This cross serves as a sort of passport between religious borders."

It was Index's turn to be surprised. Meanwhile the white haired boy began had a large smile plastered across his face.

"I'm surprised. In the few weeks I've been here I haven't found anyone who could recognize this cross's significance. Are you part of some religious studies program or something?"

Index was slightly confused, but he still was fairly wary about the white haired boy.

"Well… I have studied religions before but… my studies have cover some of the more…unknown features of religion."

"Really now? So tell me, what have your studies covered?"

"Well…"

Index put on a slight smile and launched into a conversation with the white haired boy about religious babble that Kamijou could not even begin to follow, all names of long dead men and transcribed documents.

Kamijou came to the realization that, despite her earlier misgivings, this boy was actually alright. He was a bit strange, but considering the rest of her present company he wasn't that bad.

Index and the boy reached some sort of break in the conversation, which Index to continue grilling the white haired boy.

"So tell me. Why in the world are you wearing that cross if you know what it is? There is no need for such things in this day and age, and I would guess you would not like to wear such things in this weather. Are you in the same position as me, no other clothes?"

The boy's entire mood changed. He did not stop smiling, but he was clearly not as enthusiastic as he had been before.

"Well I don't really need to wear this but I simply enjoy wearing it. It's a souvenir from the order I once served under."

"Order?"

The white haired boy leaned back in his seat and did not seem willing to continue talking at first.

"Well I really doubt you or anyone else would know of it. It's… Or rather it was a fairly unknown order that specialized in one thing. Exorcism."

The casual way the boy had said this made Kamijou almost miss the strange information that was being said. Index, however, took the information in stride.

"Exorcism? Do you mean like the removal of curses or mind control magic? Or are you a member of the Orthodox Christians?"

The blue haired took that moment to butt in.

"Are you guy's roleplaying or something? Then from now on I'll be a succubus assassin."

Kamijou could not help but look at that girl with a 'really?' look.

Index and the white haired boy continued to talk without noticing the two girls next to them.

"Nah, I'm currently not associated with any branch of Christianity right now, I'm sort of a free agent for hire. Besides, the things the Orthodox guys deal with are on a different level than what I have to deal with. And I'm not really a magician, though I know one or two spells."

Index tilted his head in confusion.

"So what is it that you have to deal with then? Exorcists need something to exorcise correct?"

The boys smile was completely gone at this point, and he looked like he was fairly uncomfortable in his current situation.

"Well… the things I exorcise are very rare now days, one of the primary reasons my order split up, so most of the time I'm just wandering place to place."

It was then Kamijou interjected hoping to change the conversation.

"So wait. How long have you been a student here?"

The boy with the spikey white hair began to scratch the back of his head.

"I came here about… a month ago now? I'm not officially a student yet since the new semester will be starting in about a week or two, but once it starts I'll be an official student."

This confused Kamijou to no end. While she lacked memories from before two weeks ago, the knowledge in her brain told her that transfers from outside Academy City were rare, especially those at the high school level.

Before Kamijou could even respond to keep this conversation going, Index interrupted.

"By the way, another thing I'm wondering is… Is there something wrong with your left hand?"

Kamijou had noticed that the boy had on one solitary glove on his left hand, which with his long sleeves, completely covered his left arm, but had not drawn attention to it.

The boy looked down at the glove and a flash of anger came across his face.

"Oh… This is… an unfortunate tradeoff for being an exorcist of my kind."

The boy hesitated for a second, then began to pull at the fingers of the glove like he was going to take it off.

He then got distracted by something behind Kamijou. Curious, Kamijou turned around.

The sight made Kamijou freeze.

There were ten people who had somehow managed to surround the table Kamijou and the others were at without causing a disturbance in the crowded restaurant.

They were all in their 20's or 30's, dressed in Western suits. They all had on a strange emotionless expression that made them feel completely out of place in this bustling area.

Kamijou did not feel any open hostility coming from these men, but she still backed up in fear.

"Ummm… hello?"

"Ah there you guys are. I was wondering how long it would take to show yourselves."

The white haired boy rose and roughly squeezed by Kamijou and walked right up to the apparent leader of the suit dressed group. Surprisingly, that man who was in his late 20's bowed to the boy who was clearly younger than him.

"Master, it seems that the Lady has some need of you. We have been instructed to return you to her."

The boy clicked his tongue, annoyed, and shock his head.

"Fine. I was just looking for a way back anyway."

Kamijou, who had been stunned by the strangeness of the situation, suddenly had an obvious question.

"Umm… Do you know these people?"

The white haired boy turned and nodded lazily.

"Yeah, these guys are… Sort of like my servants. They just came to pick me up."

He turned and began walking out of the restaurant, but then stopped and turned back, a sad smile on his face.

"I hope we can continue our conversation again sometime. I really enjoyed the distraction."

With that the white haired boy turned and disappeared out the front of the restaurant.


	3. A Certain Magician's Explanation

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

As day naturally turned to evening, the three person group split up. Kamijou had walked the blue haired girl home out of worry for her, and found that she lived above a strange looking café. Upon peeking in for the briefest of moments, Kamijou found that the waiters and waitresses of said café were all dressed as butlers and maids.

Kamijou sighed as she remembered the stupid look that blue haired girl had on her face when she was going on about butlers, and felt the numbness of a long day come over her body.

"Are you okay Touka?"

Index, who had been revitalized now that night was falling, was looking concernedly up at Kamijou.

Kamijou returned the gaze with a frown.

Though she felt glad that someone was worrying about her, Kamijou still did now know why this boy cared so much for her because of her memory loss. It seemed to her that they had some sort of bond, however not knowing the nature of that bond made her uneasy whenever she interacted with him. Was she just a friend or…?

As Kamijou thought about all this, Index stopped and started at something just off the road. Kamijou followed his gaze to a box with a white form laying in it.

"Touka…"

"No Index, don't even think about it."

Kamijou had read the handbook of her dorm and was absolutely certain that having an animal of any kind staying of the dorm was against the rules. It was also against rules to have someone who was not registered for the room to stay in it, but since Index had nowhere else to go, Kamijou had no choice but to let him stay with her. As such she didn't want to push her luck by taking in another forbidden life form.

Index, of course not understanding Kamijou's precarious position, frowned in response.

"But Touka, that poor animal could die if we don't take it in. They could freeze to death in the cold or it could become dehydrated tomorrow with the heat. It is the responsibilities of God's children to care for those less fortunate than us, such as Sphinx there."

Kamijou sighed.

"Be that as it may, my dorm's policy does not allow for… Wait did you just name that animal?"

Index clapped his hands in front of him in the universal prayer position, completely ignoring Kamijou's question.

"Oh father who art in heaven, please lend me your skill to convince this hardened heart."

"This has nothing to do with God! The fact is that my dorm does not allow for animals! If we take in an animal it just is another risk for you to get caught and kicked out!"

Despite Kamijou's protest, Index still had a resolute look on his face.

"A saint should be able to sacrifice whatever they need to in order to do God's work. Even if it inconveniences them, one must do what one must."

Kamijou's eyebrow began to twitch as she felt her blood pressure rise.

"Oh… So you say you are willing to sacrifice for God's work, but so far all you are doing is making me sacrifice everything. Are you really a priest or just some fake that constantly asks for handouts?"

"…"

Index fell silent and looked down at his feet, the defeated look obvious on his face. Kamijou instantly felt sorry for saying that, but didn't know if she should take it back or not. If this was the way old Kamijou treated him then it should have been okay for her.

But it was a lonely existence to pretend to be someone who you knew nothing about and even lonelier still to try and treat everyone with the expected treatment rather than how you wanted to. Index and that blue haired girl did not think of Kamijou in terms of what type of person she is at this moment but rather what type of person she was before.

The animal that had been in the cardboard box had long since ran off, disappearing in a flash when Kamijou had started to yell. Kamijou continued to look at Index, who still had a crestfallen look on his face, and then began to scratch her head.

"Look Index-"

Suddenly Index's head shot up, his crestfallen look replaced with one of concern.

"Mana is being gathered to a point not far from here. The attribute of the spell is earth and the color green. The ritual to perform is to use a medium to introduce mana and must be triggered by ones intervention…"

Kamijou was instantly taken aback by how serious the boy was. The face that had just asked her for the chance to adopt an animal now looked like he was on a mission of great importance.

"There seems to be a magical array in the area. The form and purpose of the spell seem harmless, but I need to investigate it to be sure."

Index turned to Kamijou with that same concerned look and Kamijou could not find her voice to ask what was going on.

"You can go home first, Touka, I shouldn't be too long."

With that, Index darted off into one of the back alleys of the city and disappeared.

"What… what in the world?"

In Kamijou's confusion, she wondered if she should really go home. While it was relatively safe in Academy City, that relatively did not act on normal common sense but rather on the sense of Academy City. When espers were the norm in this city, a simple argument between students could turn into a battle with high powered weapons on both sides. And if one of those parties didn't have powers…

"Yeah there's no way I can leave him out here alone."

Kamijou took one step toward the alleyway that Index had just run down, and in that instant, a voice spoke from behind her.

"Well it seems you two are getting along well. And here I was worrying that you might have done something strange to him."

Kamijou froze mid-step as those words reached her brain. While they seemed normal enough, they had a certain tone to them that denoted familiarity with the person they were directed towards. In this case, those words were directed at Kamijou.

Slowly turning towards the sound of the voice, Kamijou tried her best to keep a blank expression as she looked at the person who was clearly directing their words toward her.

"It's been a bit, Kamijou Touka."

The owner of those words was a girl maybe a year or two younger than Kamijou, but slightly taller due to her being a foreigner. She had flaming red hair and an all-black nun outfit on, as well as rings on every one of her fingers. The girl had a black barcode tattooed below her right eye and a cigarette was hanging lazily out of her mouth.

While the girl was dressed like a nun, Kamijou could not think of her as anything other than a heretic.

The girl pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and blew a puff of smoke with a grin.

"What? No hello after we haven't seen each other for a little bit? I guess that's fine. Our relationship hasn't reached that stage yet, anyway."

As she said the last part, the red haired girl reached up and began to scratch her head, still grinning like a maniac. Kamijou cautiously looked behind her and judged the distance between her and the nearest alley. This woman gave off the same strange aura that the boy from the restaurant, one of absolute otherworldly strangeness. It made Kamijou want to run away, but something held her in place, some slight gut feeling.

The red haired girl took Kamijou's obvious fascination with the alleyway behind her, the alleyway Index had just run down, as a concern for the boy who had just run down it.

"Ah. You don't have to worry about Index. I just laid down some Opila runes to create a magic flow to distract him while I talk to you."

In the back of Kamijou's mind, a piece of odd knowledge came up.

Runic magic used the language of the Germanic people from the 2nd century. By using certain words of power, on could cause any number of phenomenon to happen. For example, if on wrote "kenaz", flames, on a piece of paper, flames would appear from that paper.

Kamijou could not understand why she would have such knowledge in her head, and, for the briefest of moments, she felt a bit of fear. This fear was not from the strange nun in front of her, but rather from her previous self.

The red haired nun looked silently at Kamijou and, suddenly, the maniac grin turned into a smile full of almost murderous glee. She then pulled out what appeared to be a card from some hidden place with the flourish of a stage magician.

"**Don't just stand there quietly! You could die at any second!"**

Even though she could not understand the words in the obviously foreign phrase, Kamijou could understand the malicious glee apparent in them. Almost unthinkingly, Kamijou moved her left hand in front of her.

At that instant, a bout of flames burst out of the girls hand like it was a flamethrower, forming into what looked like a giant flaming sword.

There was no delay, hesitation, or mercy in the girls face when she swung the sword downward to the completely defenseless Kamijou. When it came into contact with Kamijou's outstretched left hand, it exploded like some sort of bomb.

"Ha…Ha…"

The flames had been at least over 3000 degree flames and patches of those flames still roared in the general area surrounding Kamijou. In some places the very concrete had melted into some sort of slag like mixture, yet in the center of all the mess, Kamijou stood perfectly unharmed.

"Ha, Ha, Ha…"

Kamijou shakily looked up at her outstretched, perfectly fine left hand.

Imagine Breaker.

The strange power that resided in Kamijou's left hand that could apparently negate any supernatural power with a single touch. Kamijou had yet to test it out for fear it was all just talk, but it truly seemed that the impossible power did exist in that arm.

"HA, HA, HA!"

Kamijou clenched that strange left hand into a fist and looked over at the red haired girl with an expression of extreme distaste.

"What the hell is your problem!? I could have been killed right there!"

The nun like girl simply chuckled in Kamijou's unbound anger.

"Now that's the way you should be acting. Not just standing there with some dumb look on your face."

The girl intertwined her hands and bowed her head.

"Forgive your servant Styx, lord, for I took too much pleasure in doing that."

"Who the hell would forgive you!? You're lucky no one was around to…"

Kamijou suddenly realized something about her surroundings. The fact that an explosion had gone off would have caused people to come investigate, as was human nature.

But there was no one around. Not a single person had shown their face.

The girl named Styx seemed to know exactly what Kamijou was thinking.

"If you're worried about people coming around, those Ophelia runes from earlier will direct their attention elsewhere. It was set up to both distract Index and keep unwanted ears away."

Reaching into her robes, the Styx pulled out a manila envelope. Kamijou could see strange markings on it, and somehow she realized that they were there to seal the envelope. With a muttered word from Styx, the top of the envelope popped open. The girl tossed the envelope and Kamijou reluctantly caught it from the air. With an air of apprehension, Kamijou began to look at the papers inside.

"So tell me. Have you at all heard of Misawa Cram School?"

As Styx spoke, the pieces of paper in the enveloped shot out of the envelope, hitting Kamijou in the bridge of her nose.

"Gyahhh!"

Kamijou gripped her nose as Styx began to chuckle again. Swallowing a scathing retort, Kamijou looked up and saw the paper that had flown out of the envelope floating in the air before her.

"…"

Disregarding this strange phenomenon in front of her, Kamijou began to scan the papers information unenthusiastically. As she quickly scanned the paper, nothing stood out to the Kamijou without memories, and nothing in the knowledge Kamijou with memories had gathered seemed to fit with it either. Apparently, Kamijou with memories had little interest in entrance exams or anything to do with them.

Meanwhile the girl began to talk, not waiting for Kamijou to answer.

"Misawa Cram School is apparently a college prep school that holds the largest market share in this nation. Apparently it has a success rate of about 95%."

For ronins who were constantly retaking the entrance exams for college, a success rate like that would of course attract them to such a place; but in this city, where geniuses were a dime a dozen and entrance into college was almost guaranteed, this Misawa seemed to offer a whole range of features to accommodate that.

Apparently, one of this Misawa Cram School's features was to serve as a bridge between high school and college for those geniuses among geniuses who complete the normal curriculum.

"…So… Is there a reason your showing me all this? Is there some sort of offer on where you get a discount for signing up with a friend?"

The red haired girl grinned a bit a Kamijou's sarcasm.

"The reason I'm telling you all this is to simply clarify what I am doing here. You didn't expect me to be here if there wasn't a reason, did you?"

Kamijou briefly grimaced, but Styx took that moment to replace her cigarette so she did not notice. By the time Styx looked back, Kamijou was as straight faced as she had been before.

"There is something going wrong within Misawa Cram, and it's my job to deal with it."

With a flick of the girl's finger, more sheets of paper flew out of the envelope to float in front of Kamijou.

"As you can see, there are some strange things going on in this place."

The first page was a diagram of the interior of the building, but with a significant number of errors in areas all over the place. They varied in size and type, some being embedded in inaccessible areas of the building.

The second page showed the schools electricity bill, but the expected consumption of all the rooms came out to be much less than the total consumption of the building. This clearly showed that there was something large taking up all that energy.

The final paper was an entry and exit list of the school, as well as a photo. It had been recorded that numerous people had gone into the building, but had not come out for several days. The photo was of a group of people escorting a hooded person into the school.

The girl exhaled another cloud of smoke.

"As you can see, there is something strange going on in that school. There is reason to believe that it was the site of a cult devoted to using science in their practices."

Kamijou raised a questioning eyebrow.

"A scientific cult? You mean like one of those groups that try and use gimmicks like UFO sightings and the DNA from dead Saint's to try and legitimize their insanity?"

The girl continued to exhale smoke as Kamijou became flustered at the word cult.

"Well it was possible that the cult was something along those lines, but that doesn't matter anymore. It has already been dealt with."

Kamijou's eyebrow rose further as the girl sighed.

"The scientific cult that had taken over Misawa was in turn taken over by a real magician, one with actual talent and drive as well."

"… A… real one?"

Even though something inside her told her that it was real, and she had seen clear evidence that it existed, she could not wrap her head around an idea like magic. But in a place where ESP was the norm, how could she say that there was not some other sort of system at work in this world?

Styx sighed out another cloud of smoke.

"Yeah, hard to believe, but it's true. A magician has appeared in this city of science, has taken control of the artifact known as Gray Matter, and is now refusing to leave, causing all sorts of problems. And It's my job to sort out this mess."

Kamijou questionably looked at the girl.

_Gray Matter?_

Kamijou had heard of grey matter, the supposed material that makes up a person's brain, but by the way the girl was saying it, this Gray Matter was something magical in nature.

The magician girl continued to drone on, not clarifying on anything she had just said.

"Since the magician did not immediately run after destroying the cult, we can only assume that they thought that Misawa was a suitable base after they were done. With the strangeness already going on in that school, I'm certain few people have noticed the change. Well, our side noticed anyway."

Kamijou got the distinct feeling that when Styx said the word 'our', she was not included in the magician's use of the term. Kamijou wondered how the old her would have felt about that.

"So… this magician attacked a cult of people for no reason? 'Cause that is what your explanation is telling me. Why in the world would they go to so much trouble over nothing?"

"I didn't say they did anything pointless. I simply made a point to say that Misawa Cram School, and the cult that was in it, was not the magician's objective."

"Then what was their objective?"

"Gray Matter."

Styx took another puff of her cigarette before continuing.

"You see Misawa Cram School had taken Gray Matter first and was using it in whatever insanity they were up to. The magician who I am after needed Gray Matter for whatever plan they are trying to perform, so they attacked Misawa Cram in order to claim it for themselves."

"…So what you are saying is that the magician attacked a cult for a single artifact, and is now your target?"

To Kamijou, it sounded like a master thief breaking into an art gallery for a single piece, only to find terrorists holding the place hostage. After dealing with the terrorists and obtaining what they wanted, they then find the cops storming the place.

Styx, the cop in that scenario, sighed in annoyance, pretty much answering Kamijou's question.

"Yes that is the case. The magician wanted Gray Matter to the extent that they would make their presence known in a city hostile to them. And, if what I heard was true, then doing all this might actually be worth it."

"?"

Kamijou tilted her head in confusion, and the magician took it as a sign to explain.

"Gray Matter was, or should I say is, a possession of the Roman Catholic Church that was lost to them during World War 2. It was apparently used to fight against the German Occult group before disappearing off the face of the earth. The Roman Catholic Church has been searching for it ever since."

Kamijou had a rough swallow. While she had no memories of going to class, she knew she had learned of World War 2 and the evil committed during it. Of all of them, the actions of Germany spearheaded by Adolf Hitler were the worst.

"Okay so what does this artifact do? If the magician really wanted this thing it must do something extraordinary."

Styx's face changed from a look of uncaring explanation to one of utter distaste. She began to scratch her head before sighing out even more smoke.

"That's an extremely complicated thing to go into. There isn't a lot of information on it, but what info I have is extremely contradictory. If I could have accessed the Papal Library to get some information it would have made my job easier…"

Kamijou looked on at Styx as she trailed off, then the girl magician sighed.

"Well it isn't that important. Gray Matter's effect does not cause us any inconvenience in the long run of our mission, so all we have to do is defeat the magician and, if possible, recover Gray Matter if possible."

Kamijou nodded almost obliviously, but then she caught something in Styx's explanation. The way the girl magician said our and we…

"Wait, what? You expect me to help you with this?"

The red haired magician looked slightly surprised at Kamijou's response.

"I gave you an accurate description of the situation, and our conversation was a discussion of our general battle plan. Did you have problems remembering everything? The papers are engraved with flame runes and are due to burn up, so it'll be a problem if you forget anything."

"Hold on a minute...!"

While the girl before Kamijou was probably a trained fighter, Kamijou was just an ordinary high school girl. Even with the crazy power like Imagine Breaker, if she went into an unknown environment and faced an enemy magician, she would most certainly die.

The magician in the meantime looked utterly confused.

"Why are you so scared now to fight a magician? Last time I was here you weren't afraid to charge head first at me."

"Ghhh…"

Kamijou shivered a bit at the girl in front of her. The very idea of charging at a person who could easily summon 3000 degree flames made Kamijou's feet feel like lead, and the fact that her former self had done it willingly made Kamijou, again, feel a bit of fear about her old self.

The magician, in the meanwhile, continued to drone on.

"If you're like this about getting involved with stuff that doesn't concern you, then it's a wonder that you fought to the end last time. That had nothing to do with you, yet you allowed yourself to be pushed to the point of near death. I don't see why you are so hesitant now?"

"…Well I can refuse if I want, can't I? That was then and this is now. I don't have to be involved in every stupid thing you guys do!"

That was right. Even if she had been so gungho last time, she did not have to be this time. She could refuse and continue being a normal high school student. She could…

The magicians sigh cut off Kamijou's thought process.

"You know I did not want to do this, but it seems that you've left me no choice."

The magician looked up at Kamijou, all sign of merriment gone from her face.

"If you refuse to do this, Index will be taken away from you."

Those words were spoken with such an evenness of tone that Kamijou could barely register that it was a threat.

"Wha- What do you mean Index will be taken away?! How in the world is me not helping you connected with Index staying with me?!"

The red haired magician rubbed the back of her head with an annoyed look on her face.

"The higher ups of Necessarius have only agreed that you can watch over Index on the condition that you have a strong moral compass to guide him. But by 'strong moral compass' what they actually mean a willingness to do what Necessarius wants. If you decide to go against what Necessarius wants, then they will take Index away from you."

It was a threat. It was an outright threat to Kamijou. If she disobeyed the interests of this Necessarius in any way, Index would be taken.

Somewhere deep inside her, maybe some remnant of her former self, told her that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Kamijou sighed, utterly defeated.

"Fine I'll help you. You should have said that I had no choice from the beginning."

The magician also sighed.

"So you only work under threat? I had assumed that you would help without me trying to convince you, but it seems I was wrong."

Kamijou took the insult without any complaint.

"So when will we be marching on Misawa Cram? I assume this won't take more than a day."

The magician began to scratch her chin.

"Hmmm… My final preparations will take another hour or two, so I'm guessing around then. For now I suggest you take Index home and then meet me in front of your dorm."

Kamijou nodded lazily in an attempt to hurry the conversation along.

She was still slightly worried about charging into an arena of life or death, but in order to maintain the status quo she currently had with Index, Kamijou would do whatever it took.

At the very least, she would keep the tears from that boy's face for just a little longer.

The magician looked at Kamijou for a few seconds before she realized something.

"By the way, here is a picture of Gray Matter. It might not be dangerous to us or even essential for our mission, but it wouldn't be right if you were to miss it simply because you didn't know what it looked like."

A picture flew out of the about to explode envelope and Kamijou hesitantly looked at it. She had no idea what sort of item Gray Matter was, but she felt it must have been some sort grand and terrible artifact.

Looking at the picture, Kamijou saw the face of the boy from the restaurant.

"…Huh?"

"What's the matter?"

Styx looked at Kamijou with a confused expression.

Meanwhile, Kamijou's brain could not wrap around what she saw. She thought that this was some sort of insane joke.

"This… Who is this? I thought you were going to show me Gray Matter, not some random person!"

The magician was silent to a few seconds before she sighed as if she was expending some great effort.

"That 'random person' is the Gray Matter. That is the thing that is what the within Misawa Cram."

Kamijou swallowed the disgust she felt at a person being called a thing and looked at the picture. There was no doubt that it was the boy from the restaurant, with the unmistakable white hair and the strange tattoo.

In that instant, as Kamijou observed the picture, she remembered what the boy had said in the restaurant.

"_Well I did go a bit crazy with the eating. Heck I don't even have enough for a train ticket."_

"Is it possible that Gray Matter is imprisoned in Misawa Cram School?"

Styx briefly looked like she was pondering something, then she sighed.

"Well it is possible. Depending on what they were working on, the cult that was there might have found it better for them to imprison the Gray Matter. The magician might have also found it better to keep it imprisoned as well, and that might be the reason why they did not leave. They did not want to disturb whatever was sealing the artifact in place."

Once the magician finished talking Kamijou unconsciously began to clench her left fist.

If that were true, and he was imprisoned, then him being at that restaurant meant that he was escaping from his that same imprisonment. He had probably eaten so much because he had not eaten while he had been in the custody of those people. Without the money he needed, he was unable to escape to the safety he needed.

Which meant that because Kamijou had not given him the money he needed, it was all her fault that he had been recaptured in the restaurant.

"God damn it."

Kamijou had been so caught up in her own misfortune to notice anything. There was someone in need of help right in front of her eyes, yet she had simply remained focused on the fact that she had stupidly bought a reference book.

Even though Kamijou knew nothing about her former self, she knew that the old her would not have stood for something like that happening.

The red haired magician could somehow sense the overwhelming bloodlust emanating from Kamijou so much so that she looked over at her with a concerned look on her face.

"Is… there something wrong? You… You look like you're about to kill someone."

Kamijou hesitated. Should she tell her about everything that had happened earlier? About the men in suits and the overall strange atmosphere that had surrounded the boy while he was in that restaurant.

Kamijou grinned at the magician. It wasn't a grin of familiarity or friendship, but one confirming Kamijou's choice.

"Nothing. I just have more of a reason to do this now."


	4. A Certain Preparation for Battle

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

Kamijou looked at the expression worn by the boy named Index with great apprehension.

The knowledge that she had stored in her brain was complaining to her like some sort of alarm. Kamijou knew that Index possessed an eidetic, or perfect, memory and forgot nothing that was presented to him.

Thus, Kamijou began to think of a major problem.

She had parted ways with Styx and returned to the dorm after she had found Index a few blocks away. Now, Kamijou needed to go to the 'battlefield' that was called Misawa Cram School and rescue a person she had partially condemned there.

Of course, the problem right now was how to handle Index. Bringing Index along with her was unthinkable, seeing as how he collapsed just from the summer heat and had no apparent battle ability at all, so it was preferable to not tell him anything about Misawa Cram at all and leave him at home.

However, if she failed to produce some plausibly valid reason to leave the house at this time of day, Index would become suspicious and perhaps even try to go after her despite not knowing a thing about what was going on.

That was something Kamijou had to avoid at all costs.

"Touka, are you all right?"

Kamijou's palms began to sweat as she went over her options. No matter what she did, she did not know how to successfully avoid suspicion while still maintaining the guise of the Kamijou from before.

It was like she was playing poker against someone who knew all her tells and she knew nothing at all.

"Touka… do you have a fever or something?"

Kamijou jumped when she realized that Index had closed the distance between them, their faces only centimeters from each other. His eyes clearly held concern in them, but Kamijou knew that those eyes weren't directed at her at all.

Kamijou sighed before she came up with a response.

"I'M GOING OFF TO A SUPER HIGH-TECH CULTURE INSTITUTE! EH? YOU WANT TO COME ALONG? I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD! SINCE YOU'RE NOT GOOD WITH MACHINES AND ALL, YOU CAN'T USE THE SUPER-MAGENETIC BRAIN DETECTOR THEY'RE SHOWING OFF! YOU'D PROBABLY GET LOCKED IN BY THE DOOR'S AUTO-LOCK!"

As expected, under the bombardment of such crazy technobabble, Index's face became the picture of confusion. Index, the boy who had somehow managed to memorize 103,000 grimoires, lacked any sort of general knowledge of the modern world, let alone the super advanced one Kamijou lived in.

Index took a slow step back from Kamijou, and it seemed that from Index's slowly comprehending face, Kamijou must have been in the clear.

"Then, I'll let you know before I go out that I'll probably be gone until well past the curfew time. There's a dinner in the fridge for you so use the microwave to heat it up and it should be fine to eat. Oh, and don't put the spoon in the microwave with it or you'll start a fire. Also, don't open the freezer to cool yourself off either if you get hot. It's a waste of electricity and I'll get charged for going over my allowed electricity consumption."

Index looked at Kamijou with a still flustered and confused expression.

"Eh? Ah, uu… but Touka…I can't really use the microwave well. I can try again but…"

Normally, a person would ask how one would ask how one would misuse a microwave, but Kamijou knew from firsthand experience the danger that came from allowing Index using a microwave.

Just a few days ago Kamijou had put Index in charge of making a microwaveable dinner set, and in the end it caused the set to both burn and to a crisp and explode in spectacular fashion. How he managed to do that Kamijou could not even begin to guess and chalked it up to Index being bad with machines.

Index looked away from Kamijou to look at the microwave in a sort of fear, and Kamijou sighed in relief since he didn't seem suspicious at all.

That was when she noticed it.

There was a strange bulge in Index's robes that Kamijou was certain had not been there when they had parted ways an hour or two ago. It was clear that whatever it was, it was alive seeing as how it was squirming around vigorously.

"Ummmm… Index?"

"Hmm? What is it Touka?"

When Index turned to face Kamijou, there was not a single speck of anything suspicious in his gaze.

"What is that in your robes?"

The second Kamijou pointed it out, Index lit up in embarrassment and began to back off slowly.

"W-W-Well you see Touka… I… I…"

At that second the bulge within Index's robes moved, and the creature that had been in there poked it's head out.

"Wha…!"

The creature was unlike anything Kamijou had ever seen. It looked like a pure white cat almost, but had two long extensions coming out of its ears with golden rings around the ends of them. It also had the beadiest, blood red eyes Kamijou had ever seen on a living creature.

In one part of Kamijou's mind she wanted to fawn over it and call it the cutest thing ever.

In the other, she wanted to grab a hammer and bash its skull in.

Index began to rub the back of his head sheepishly as he looked away from Kamijou's questioning gaze.

"I'm… I'm sorry Touka. It's just… This creature came up to me and looked like it was begging to be taken in. I couldn't resist. Helping such a poor, abandoned soul is something that I just needed to do."

Kamijou was silent, looking directly at the creature with its head poking out of Index's robes, which was looking around the room with an almost human curiosity.

"Uhmm… Index?"

"…Yes, Touka?"

"Uhmmm… Don't you think that this… creature… looks a bit… weird?"

Index shoved his hands over the creatures ears, comically and disturbingly squishing the creatures head. While Kamijou felt her stomach almost turn upside down, Index did not seem to notice.

"Don't say something like that! Even though they can't understand you does not mean you can just insult them!"

Index pulled his hands away from the creature, and the creatures head returned to its original shape after a few moments, like it had no skeleton underneath its skin.

Despite Index saying that the creature did not understand her, and she felt a fool for thinking it, she felt that the creature was looking at her with a pout.

"We-Well… It doesn't matter what I say about it. We have to get rid of it fast. Here, give it to me and I'll drop it off at a shelter on my way-"

"How can you be so heartless Touka?!"

Kamijou took a step back as Index shouted at the top of his lungs. The creature somehow came loose from whatever fastening it was in and ran out of Index's robes and hopped onto Kamijou's bed.

"This animal could die in a shelter before anyone would help them. They could also be sent to a poor home where they could beat them to death or do some other horrible things to it. We should at least shelter it until we can get them a good home."

"…"

Kamijou remained silent as Index spilled his heart out about this animal. Meanwhile, said creature was curling up on Kamijou's pillow and watching the situation with its beady red eyes.

After bearing a few more seconds of Index's stares, Kamijou sighed.

"Fine you can keep it here for now."

Index was at first silent, but then broke out into a huge smile.

"Really!? Thank you Touka, you won't regret this at all!"

Kamijou nodded lazily before holding up a hand to discourage further talking.

"Now hold on there, Index. This decision doesn't come without some rules. Firstly, you will be the one responsible for taking care of that… thing while it is here, not me. If it gets injured or sick in anyway because of you, I'm sending it to a shelter as soon as possible."

Index nodded in a fairly professional manner.

"Of course, of course. I'm certain that I can figure out how to raise it without much difficulty. I am charged with caring for god's creatures after all."

Kamijou continued on talking as if she had ignored Index's words.

"Second, I going to assume that … thing belongs to some research project in the city. It just looks like it… has had some sort of alteration. So if someone comes looking for it, you will have to give it back to them. Am I clear?"

Index nodded again, but this time it was a slightly sadder one. Kamijou then got onto her main rule.

"And third, if that thing turns out to be some sort of super mystical being that offers you the secrets of the universe in exchange for something, I want you to ignore it and kick it out immediately."

"…Ehhh!?"

Index looked down at the creature resting on Kamijou's bed as Kamijou smiled at her own joke.

Kamijou could have easily forced Index to give the creature to her and then dropped it off at some non-descript place on the way to Misawa Cram, but she got the feeling that Index would probably follow her and try to take it back, maybe even causing him to follow her to Misawa.

Besides, Kamijou thought as she took a look at the slightly scared but smiling Index, if it put a smile on his face, what difference did it make?

To Kamijou, that was enough for her.

* * *

After continuing the cleanup job that she had started that morning and assisting Index in setting up the basics for that animal, Kamijou stepped out of the dormitory and instantly ran into Styx, who was busy scattering small card like objects all around the immediate area.

"…"

Kamijou quickly shut the door behind her while Index was busy dealing with the strange animal, and sighed.

"What in the world are you doing here? When you said you would meet me in front of my dorm I didn't think it would be just outside my front door."

Styx did not even bother to turn to answer Kamijou, and began to hum as she continued to place the cards on the railing.

"I'm sorry; I'll be more specific next time. As for what I'm doing, I'm laying down a temple for Innocentius. With both of us going off to Misawa Cram, I feel that I should leave behind some sort of defensive measure to protect Index. You never know what idiot will come by to try and steal him away while we're gone."

"Innocentius…"

For some reason, that name had a strange feeling on Kamijou's tongue. Her knowledge told her that Innocentius meant "I will surely kill you" and that it was a spell dealing with fire. To perform it, one needed to set up a barrier in which the magic could manifest. The main weak point of this spell was…

"But what happens if someone preemptively tries to take out the barrier? Then the spell wouldn't work."

Styx sighed as she listened to Kamijou's argument.

"Listen, while I might have been lied to by my superior, that doesn't mean I'm completely stupid. I've taken care to improve upon my equipment after we fought that last time, so it is next to impossible to take out the barrier without at least alerting Index to the attacker's presence."

"O-Oh. Yeah… Well… Okay then…"

To Kamijou, who knew nothing of who she was before, continuing with this line of conversation was dangerous.

Styx, who was completely unconcerned about Kamijou's strange actions, placed one last card to complete the barrier and stood up, stretching.

"Well looks like I'm done here. This is such a pain, y'know? I have to set up a barrier that can repel magicians, but also one that can't be detected by him. Man, it is such a pain."

Even though Styx's words belayed a sense of annoyance, it was clear from her face that she was slightly happy. It was then that Kamijou spoke her mind about something.

"You really like Index, don't you?"

Styx's face lit up redder than anything Kamijou had ever seen and the deck of card like things she was holding slipped out of her hands and slid all across the floor.

"Wha-Wha-What are you talking about?! It's not like I don't care about him at all, but it's not like I think of him that way…"

It was clear by the way her voice trailed off that she was not being entirely truthful, but Kamijou did not press the subject. Something told her that if she did, she would be on the receiving end of the carefully constructed spell behind Styx.

"So… Who is this magician we will be going up against? Do we have any idea on who they are?"

Styx, looking relieved at the change of subject, picked up her cards and began to walk toward the exit.

"Yeah I have a better idea now. My contacts got back to me finally. The magicians name is Trisha Elric, and apparently she is an alchemist that uses a style that is pretty much unknown to most of the magic community. The person holding Gray Matter's name is apparently Allen Walker. He is a complete mystery to me. I've been looking for information on him but so far nothing has come up."

"Why are you referring to Allen by his name now? You were referring to him like some sort of item before. Why the change?"

"Well it's because I know more about what Gray Matter is compared to earlier. I know now that the person who uses Gray Matter and Gray Matter itself are separate, but I wasn't really that far wrong in assuming that they were one person."

"Why's that?"

"Because the human and the artifact are basically bonded as one. The Gray Matter is grafted into the users body."

Kamijou remembered in the restaurant when Index had asked Allen about his left hand, he got an almost sad look on his face.

"Is the grafting… painful to the person using it?"

"It doesn't really matter to the purpose of our mission, so I didn't bother to ask. However artifacts that do this sort of thing usually are painful to install and would cause even more pain to use it."

Kamijou gripped her left hand into a fist, but Styx did not seem to notice it.

"So what about the magician? Is there anything you can tell me about them?"

Styx scratched her head and pulled out a cigarette. The two of them exited the front of Kamijou's dormitory and began walking down the street.

"Well… I'm assuming that since that the enemy is an alchemist of some sort, knowledge of alchemy is important. So tell me, what do you know about alchemy?"

Kamijou thought briefly before answering. Though her own knowledge seemed incredibly limited, she indeed knew a little bit about alchemy.

"Alchemy was a pre-science that was often referred to as a type of magic. Its primary focus was … transmutation, or the transformation of base metals into gold. Is that correct?"

Styx laughed a bit as she took a puff of the cigarette she had lit.

"That is mostly correct from a scientific point of view, but there is more to it if you look at it through magic."

The setting August sun cast an orange glow across the futuristic scenery of Academy City.

"Well for starters, while alchemy could indeed be considered a pre-science, it is indeed a magical art. It was practiced primarily during the pre-Renaissance era, and has fallen out of practice as time went on."

Kamijou listened intently as Styx spoke, knowing that a single missed word meant life or death.

"While transmutation was one of its main goals, Alchemy's ultimate goal was the creation of an item known as the philosopher's stone. I believe that in modern science there is no way to describe it, but I'm certain that if it existed it would be referred to as a universal catalyst."

Kamijou was slightly confused at Styx's choice of words.

"Are you certain you know what you are talking about? A catalyst is something that artificially speeds up a reaction and reduces the amount of energy needed to perform it. If something was a universal catalyst, then that would mean that every reaction that occurred near it would be sped up."

"Hmmm… Yes I guess that you're correct. Universal Catalyst is the wrong term for it?"

Styx began to scratch her chin as she appeared to be deep in thought. Kamijou found it somewhat fitting that someone who thought in terms of magic to fail at terms that sounded very science like, but could not help but feel completely helpless and scared about what she was walking into.

"Well then… the best explanation I have for a philosopher's stone it's both a universal catalyst, as well as an item that allows any sort of reaction to happen."

Kamijou was convinced that Styx had gotten it wrong again, but from the look on her face, it was clear that she was serious.

"…What?! How in the world is that possible?!"

Kamijou could not believe the insanity that had been said.

"So… Let me just see if we are on the right page here. Are you saying that, by using a philosopher's stone, one could make any sort of chemical reaction happen? Like someone changing CO2 into something like, I don't know, Iron?"

Styx took another puff of her cigarette in silence.

"I'm not sure about the science behind such an action, but based upon the magic theory behind it, I'm certain it is possible."

Kamijou felt all the strength leave her legs.

There was no way. There was no way in this world that operated through scientific principles that something as overpowered as that could exist. If it did, then someone could easily destroy the world if they got it into their minds. A person could just make radioactive material literally out of thin air and then use it to create bombs.

As Kamijou thought about how fragile the world truly was, Styx interjected.

"You don't have to worry about going up against a philosopher's stone though. Even during the height of Alchemical practice, there is no recorded instance of one being created. There are supposed systems in place that prevent one from being created. That, and no one could even begin to figure out what would be needed to make one."

Kamijou wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but instead looked at Styx with annoyance.

"Why in the world would you tell me all that then!? I don't need theories or conjecture about what we could be facing, but an actual idea and a way to fight it!"

Styx rolled her eyes and focused on one of the tall skyscrapers in the distance.

"Well, before you decided to go off like that, I was going to tell you that Alchemists are experts at making tools and making traps. Of all types of magic, this one is utterly dependent on preparation and gearing their style to the specific enemy."

Styx tossed the remains of her cigarette into the gutter and began to stretch.

"With more than one enemy and no idea who they will be up against, all we have to do is avoid their initial rounds of generic tricks, and catch them before they can create any more tools, then we'll be in the clear."

"…"

Kamijou began to scratch the back of her head in her silence before sighing.

"Well is there anything you can tell me about any tricks or tools this alchemist is liable to throw at us? At the very least I would like to know what is going to kill me."

Styx was silent for a moment, and when Kamijou turned to look at her, she saw that Styx had a fairly disgusted look on her face.

"Ummm… Styx? Are you alright?"

"There might be one thing we need to worry about."

For some reason, Kamijou felt a chill run up her spine.

"As I said before, what Gray Matter does is a difficult thing to explain. That is because it has a very contradictory set of powers."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, on one hand, it is used to create a specific type of golem, while on the other, it can destroy that same type of golem."

"Isn't that just a common sense design? If you were to create something, wouldn't you want the means to control it?"

"Ha!"

Styx's spiteful laugh did nothing but put Kamijou more on edge.

"You really don't understand how the magician thought process works. We don't create an item that would have both the ability to create and destroy in one package. As much as I would like to say that the magic side is forward thinking, we are just as blind as everyone else."

Styx sighed before continuing.

"Anyway I have the feeling that those things will be here."

"Things?"

Styx looked at Kamijou with that same serious face.

"There is a distinct possibility that we will be facing Akuma in this battle."

Kamijou stopped completely.

"Akuma…You mean like actual demons!?"

Kamijou then briefly remember that the boy who was called Gray Matter had said something along the lines that he was an exorcist.

Styx shook her head, dismissing Kamijou's understanding.

"No these things are not demons, but rather golems. I don't know why they are called your word for 'demon', but it wouldn't be hard to say that they are a magicians worst nightmare."

The way Styx talked like she was annoyed rather than scared.

"The Akuma were first recorded to have been used during World War Two, but considering that something like Gray Matter existed before that, they must have been around longer than that. They are… an interesting sort of golem."

"How so?"

"Well…"

Styx trailed off, almost like she was unwilling to continue. After a quick puff of her cigarette she continued

"Akuma require a specific resource to be created. This resource was very plentiful in World War 2, especially in the Nazi death camps."

Kamijou wondered what Styx was talking about but then it hit her.

"You can't mean… bodies can you?"

Styx sighed out the last puff of her cigarette.

"Well it is the truth of the situation."

"But… Why isn't it considered Necromancy then? Isn't that the kind of magic that uses dead bodies?"

"Well… These bodies don't just get raised, its more they get modified and then used for whatever purpose the modifier wants, though most of the time it's just for killing. These golems are pretty much impervious to magical and physical attacks, making them damn near unbreakable. They are basically weapons inside of a human body."

Styx pulled another cigarette out of some unknown pocket.

" We don't need to worry about them too much however, unless this city somehow has access to a large amount bodies lying around. Also while I said they were near impervious, I can kill them if I know I'm going to fight them."

Styx and Kamijou both stopped walking.

"Well… looks like we're here."

Both Styx and Kamijou looked in front of them.

They had arrived at the battlefield.

"You know… I gotta say…"

Kamijou looked up at the building that was to be their battlefield.

The 'building' was actually four separate buildings combined into one through a series of suspended corridors. They were all the same kind of 12 story, rectangular design, with the only differences being the orientation. One could say that was strange, but not out of the ordinary.

Kamijou sighed as she came to that conclusion of the Misawa Cram School's Academy City branch. To think that anyone could associate magic to such an ordinary looking building blew her mind. To Kamijou it just seemed like any other school in this city; as she looked she saw students going in and out of the building at their own leisurely pace.

Styx was silent as she also looked over the building, though whether or not she was coming to the same conclusion as Kamijou was unknown.

"Well our first target should be the 5th level of the southern building. Apparently there is a secret room there next to the restaurant."

Kamijou did not remember anything about a restaurant on the diagram the Styx had showed her, but she knew that her memory wasn't very good.

"A secret room, huh? How do you think the alchemist is able to hide it from the regular people?"

"It's probably some sort of illusion or distortion that makes people ignorant of the existence of the room. There are 17 other such rooms throughout these four buildings, so going to the closest one first would be advantageous for us."

Kamijou turned her attention back to the building and sighed.

"I really hope this isn't like one of those booby-trapped ninja palaces."

Styx took another puff of her cigarette.

"Yeah let's hope for the best, yet prepare for the worst."

With that, Styx took a step toward the entrance.

"… Wait hold on!"

Styx turned to Kamijou with a questioning look on her face.

"Is that all you're going to do?! I mean… Aren't you an expert at this sort of thing!?"

Styx looked back up at the building and sighed.

"Yes, I am an expert at this sort of thing. And yet, even as an expert, I can't detect anything. That leaves us with only one option. To walk right in."

"…"

It was stupid. So stupid that Kamijou seriously wondered why she was doing this.

Styx had said that she had sensed nothing, but had clearly avoided answering whether or not it was safe. Was it safe for Kamijou just to go into that building with no info?

Styx took another puff of her cigarette, and sighed.

"Look, I know that you must be scared, but entering the building is the only option. I could just burn this place to the ground if I truly wanted to, but I would rather prefer not to kill people along with the alchemist. I simply don't want their deaths on my conscience."

Styx looked at Kamijou with a clear determination in her eyes.

"That means I have to go in there at the risk of my life. It's the only thing I can do, so it's the only thing I will do."

With that, the nun like magician turned and walked toward the entrance of the building, leaving Kamijou in stunned silence.

After a few seconds, Kamijou sighed.

"Can you at least put up some sort of spell that can make us undetectable or something? Do you have anything like that in your bag of tricks?"

Styx kept walking without even looking back.

"Even if I used some sort of spell to hide our presence, it would be pointless. By my casting of a magic, it would give off a pulse of magic that would alert the magician to my presence in the immediate area. Your left hand will also cause problems."

"How's that?"

"Assume that the natural flow of mana in an area is a picture painted red. In my case, me casting magic would turn an area of that picture a different color. If the magician is not stupid, they would notice such things and prepare accordingly."

Styx took a puff of her cigarette before continuing.

"In your case, while I'm not 100% sure, I assume that your left hand negates mana in the area around it. So if that is the case…"

"Then my left hand is basically an eraser with a giant sign saying 'come and get me'"

Styx looked back at Kamijou with a pitying smile.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. So we might want to split up at one point in order to maximize our fighting potential."

Kamijou sighed.

That was it. All other options had been eliminated, so they were left with one, singular option.

Walk right into the middle of the stronghold of an enemy who was fully expecting them and hope for the best.

Neither of them knew what to expect, but they could not run away.

Styx looked up at the building and put on a solemn expression.

"Let's go."

Kamijou followed the red haired magician with a look of defeat on her face.

"Yeah, Yeah. You don't have to tell me twice."

With that, Kamijou and Styx entered the battlefield of Misawa Cram.


	5. A Certain Entrance

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

Upon entering through the automatic doors, Kamijou and Styx found a scene that could have been from any of the schools around the city. Seeing as it was late, it must have been break time for this school that specialized at accelerating peoples studies; as the two of them looked on numerous students walked in and out of the automatic doors, either going to find dinner or coming back from it respectively.

Kamijou and Styx did not attract any attention at all, probably because it was the entrance hall of the building and not anywhere sensitive. For all these students knew, the two of them were there to apply for the school.

_Talk about a lack of security. Forget about me, this girl beside me doesn't even look like a student._

Kamijou sighed and looked around, looking for anything out of the ordinary that could give her a heads up in case it was a trap. But Kamijou could see nothing.

The entire entryway of this building was utterly normal.

That was why it was easy to see the glaring abnormality.

There were four elevators to the right and left of entrance. Between the two on the right, a human size and shaped robot lay against a column. Its style looked like a suit of old western armor, but it had modernistic feel like it was a fighter jet. The metal that it was made out of reflected a pale silver light, a complete disconnect from the steel and other metal Kamijou had grown accustomed to seeing. An 80 cm long bow made out of roughly the same material was lying nearby, which Kamijou assumed was equipment for the machine.

One look at the robot could tell that it was not able to fulfill whatever its original purpose was. Its metal limbs were twisted in an ungodly fasion, making them look like scrap metal. A slick, reddish black oil spilled out from its dysfunctional limbs, filling the air with a rusty smell.

Kamijou frowned as she walked over to inspect the robot.

The main robot designs used by this city were cylinder like in order to save time and materials on their construction due to the complexity of making a human shaped robot, and as far as Kamijou knew there hadn't even been any sort of organization that implemented even a prototype of humanoid robot yet.

How the robot had even broken down in here was beyond Kamijou. The damage to the machines arms and legs made it look like it had been in some sort of traffic accident, but there was no conceivable way such a force could be applied in this entrance hall.

Finally, why was their no one else noticing this? Besides Kamijou, not a single one of the students wandering around the entryway seemed to be looking this way.

Styx followed Kamijou up to the robot, a grim look on her face. After a few seconds, she sighed.

"Are you really that interested in this thing? While it might be true that this is a rare sight for you, we have more important things to do."

Kamijou became confused at that statement.

"Robots are a thing from the science side right? Why in the world would this not be rare sight to you?"

Styx looked down at the robot, leaking oil all over the ground, and grimaced.

"That isn't a robot. It's a corpse."

"…Huh?"

Kamijou thought she had heard wrong, hoped that Styx was mistaken.

But no reassurance came from that girl.

Styx leaned down and began to exam the robot/corpse.

"Hmmm… Armor inscribed with Latin and a Heavenly Bow duplicate. This poor guy must be one of the 13 knights from Roman Catholic Church. He was probably here to reclaim Gray Matter, even though there was another church going in. Why in the world would they do this?"

Styx was unnaturally calm in the face of the robot/corpse, the utter opposite of Kamijou.

Kamijou was slowly backing up from the robot/corpse, whose limbs incased in metal were twisted in unnatural angles and the reddish blood was slowly spreading across the floor.

Styx looked back up Kamijou with a pitying look on her face.

"This must be shocking for you, seeing as it must be your first time seeing a corpse. But this is a battlefield. A corpse or two won't be a rare sight here."

Kamijou could not help but shiver in fear.

She knew.

She somehow knew that it wouldn't be that easy. This was the enemy stronghold, where numerous traps and enemies awaited her to take her life.

She knew that… but she couldn't just push it under the rug.

"What the hell…?"

Kamijou could not contain her shivers. To her, the blood made Kamijou sick to her stomach. Not because it was something disgusting, but rather at the complete uncaring nature of everyone around.

Kamijou looked at the corpse of a fellow human being, and came to the sickening realization, from the steam, no vapor, that was coming out of the armor, that the person in the armor was still breathing.

"D-damn it!"

Kamijou rushed to the side of the corpse, panicking. She wanted to help the person trapped in the armor, but she did not even know what to do. She could probably bandage the wounds if she could reach them, but to do that she had to remove the armor, which she didn't know the first thing about it.

Kamijou began to reach into her skirt pocket for her phone, only to be stopped.

Styx was holding Kamijou's arm with a solemn look.

"It's already too late. We can't waste any more time here."

Kamijou was silent for a few seconds, but then she began to glare at Styx with pure venom.

"What do you mean wasting time?"

Kamijou pulled her arm out of Styx's grasp with such force that Styx nearly fell over.

"We have someone right here who is injured, near death, and you're saying it's a waste of time trying to help him?!

It was then that words Kamijou would regret tumbled from her mouth.

"Are you even human?!"

Styx flinched, was silent for a moment, and then a sad smile came across her face.

"No…I guess I'm not…"

Kamijou was stunned by that answer.

She had expected denial, ignorance, or anything besides accepting it.

Styx in the meanwhile, did not seem to change.

"I haven't been a human for a while I guess. I wonder when I stopped…"

Styx sighed but then shrugged.

"I guess it dosen't matter. It doesn't change the job I need to do."

Suddenly, before she could even react to that comment, Kamijou felt a force on her arm.

It wasn't the force of someone pushing or pulling her, but a body less force that just moved her out of the way.

Kamijou moved out of the way of the oncoming force, and when she turned, she saw that there was a boy walking right through the place Kamijou had been standing.

Kamijou reached out to grab that boy, still blinded by her rage.

"Hey! Watch where you are going next time you-"

Kamijou instantly had her arm grabbed.

Styx stood there, holding Kamijou's arm, all traces of her earlier insecurities gone.

"There is a boundary here. The normal people we see are on the 'outside' of the barrier, while we are inside of it. It seems like that those of us on the inside can't affect those on the outside."

Kamijou could not even begin to follow this insanity, only to see another high school aged girl begin to walk through the blood pool that the corpse was giving off. She walked straight through it, yet not a single drop covered her shoes.

Styx saw that as well and clicked her tounge.

"No… The entire building is part of the outside. Damn it I was afraid of this."

Kamijou looked at the stressed look on Styx's face. All her rage had disappeared in an instant.

"Wha-What's going on? Why is this boundary so dangerous?"

Styx sighed in response.

"Come on. You felt what happened before right? While on the inside of this barrier, we cannot touch or be touched by anything on the outside, or even be noticed by anyone on the outside. That force that you felt was the barrier keeping you from touching a person on the other side. That is what probably happened to our friend here. He probably walked into a group of people without any prior knowledge and the combined force-"

"Just… stop…"

Kamijou did not want to even imagine it. The pain and suffering that person must have went through was something Kamijou never ever wanted to imagine.

So instead she tried to think of a solution.

"So what can we do? Can my left hand help us out at all?"

Styx bit into the end of her cigarette and grimaced.

"Our options are limited right now. The fastest means of transportation are cut off to us because of the risk, but the ones we can safely use are hard to access now that we can't use anything on the outside. Your left hand won't work either. I think this boundary is like my Innocentius, meaning that there is a core to this magic somewhere. Damn it. What do we do now?"

Styx scratched her head and began to look around for an option.

Kamijou gritted her teeth in anger.

"Damn it. We've got an injured person here and we can't do anything!"

"Like I said, we can't waste any time here. We have to go and fulfill our goals."

Kamijou glared at Styx in rage.

"What the hell are you saying?! That guy is still-"

"He may be alive, but he won't last for more than a few seconds. Even you can tell that right?"

Kamijou clenched her fist.

It was true that even Kamijou could tell that this man had little time left, even without any info about the inside of his body.

But that could not stop her.

"Is it wrong to want to save someone?! Maybe if we get him out… Maybe if we fix something…"

Styx put a hand on Kamijou's quivering shoulder.

"This man has fractured ribs puncturing his lungs, and most of his internal organs are crushed. I doubt that even your science can save him."

Kamijou grimaced.

"Is there… really nothing we can do?"

Styx walked past Kamijou and knelled before the dying knight.

"We can't save him, but we can send him to heaven with a comforted mind."

Styx began to talking to the knight in a solemn foreign tone. In that moment, she truly looked like a nun.

The knight spoke back at Styx, his voice raspy and quiet. Styx listened to him without a single word, before nodding.

Kamijou watched as the knights body relaxed and a final breath escaped their body.

"_Requesta in Pace, _my brother in Christ."

Styx bowed her head and sent a prayer up to heaven with the soul of the knight. Still maintaining her saintly persona, Styx the nun rose.

"It seems that we have another reason to fight."

* * *

A few minutes later, Kamijou was feeling terrible.

"My legs…"

The "outside" and "inside" of the barrier as Styx had called it meant that people on the inside of the barrier, like her and Kamijou, were unable to interfere with the workings on the outside of it. Those were the rules that Styx had lined out for the boundary.

However, the entire building which they were in was on the "outside" of the barrier.

Since that was the case, the result of this was that stepping on the floor of this building would cause recoil of force towards the foot and subsequently the legs. It was the difference between punching flesh and transferring the force and punching concrete.

As both Kamijou and Styx walked on a "ridiculously hard floor", the force from the movement made fatigue accumulate much faster than normal.

"…"

Styx was completely silent and irate as she walked. She seemed to be trying to maintain her persona from earlier, but was failing as beads of sweat began to form on her brow.

Kamijou sighed.

If taking the elevator was an option, she would have jumped in at once. However it still stood that individuals on the back could, in no ways, interfere with the front. Neither she nor Styx could even push a button on the elevator board, and if to many people got into it with them…

Kamijou shivered as she remembered the twisted metal of the knight's armor.

She was tired, with dark and twisted thoughts floating through her mind, which was not what one wanted to feel when going into battle. She wanted something happy to think about if she was going to keep going.

Kamijou sighed again and thought up some insanely pointless topic.

"Hey… How'll phones work in here?"

Styx turned to Kamijou with an annoyed glare.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well… You were talking about insides and outsides of the barrier and I was just wondering… How will phones even work inside of the barrier?"

Styx clicked her tongue.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?! I haven't tested it out before, nor have I heard of anyone doing it before! You can try it if you want, but I don't know if it will work!"

Kamijou knew that she was most likely tired from the work, but that did not stop her from being taken aback by Styx's rage.

"But… What about my phone signal? Couldn't it be tracked by the enemy?"

Styx turned and blew a puff of smoke directly into Kamijou's face and the veins on her forehead bulged out.

"If you're worried about that then you don't have to. The only reason we are on this side of the barrier is that the enemy already knows that we are here."

Kamijou stopped in her tracks.

"Wait… What?! If they know that we're here why haven't attacked us?!"

"Who the hell knows!? Their probably making some insane counter's to our abilities, the very thing we don't want them to do! It irks me that they are so overconfident, and allowing us to wander about but… Oh for Christ's sake! How many more stairs are there?!"

Styx looked at the stairwell up to the 5th floor and broke out into an unintelligible bit of swearing and cursing. Kamijou took this opportunity to pull out her phone.

There was never any doubt to who she would call. She quickly dialed her home's phone number and put the receiver up to her ear.

The line connected and began to ring.

Three rings.

_Does this mean it doesn't work…?_

Six rings.

_It must not. He would have picked up by now…_

Nine rings.

"Hurry up and pick up the phone!"

Styx stopped swearing to look at Kamijou with a curious look, but Kamijou did not notice.

Is this because of the barrier or…

"**Erm… Hello this is Kamijou Touka's residence. She is not in right now, but I can take a message if you need me to."**

Kamijou gripped the bridge of her nose.

"Tell me Index… when you hear a phone ringing, do you just stand over it wondering what to do, or do you just ignore it?"

Index, who was of course on the other end of the line, was in a stunned silence.

"**Is… Is this Touka? You sound like her, especially the judging, but I don't know if it is Touka or if people on phones all sound the same?"**

Kamijou sighed.

This was the supposeed keeper of 103,000 grimories which could change the very nature of the world. This apparent failure with technology was probably from him not being around it for most of his life, but the failure was still annoying.

"**By the way Touka, Negi-san came by looking for you."**

"My teacher?"

Kamijou's was instantly suspicious.

She knew who her teacher was because he had visited her while she had been hospitalized two weeks ago. He was a strange individual, looking like he was around Kamijou's age yet initially exerting an aura of a mature adult.

This aura quickly disappeared after the waves of sexual harassment and crude humor began to wash over her, leaving her at odds at what she should think of him.

"So what did he want? Homeroom teachers don't usually make house calls during summer break."

"**Uhhh…Well…"**

Kamijou could hear the distinct rustling of papers over the phone line.

"**It…It… Looks like some sort of encoded message."**

"Huh?"

"**Give me a second, I'll read it out to you…Uhm… Let's see here…"**

After more rustling of papers Index continued.

"**One set of papers starts off with 'find x using the following equation' while another starts with 'write an essay on ***.' Another one is… Ehhh? What is this training academy?"**

Kamijou felt her eyebrow twitch in annoyance.

"Oi…Index…"

"**Hmmm? What is it Touka?"**

"Are you just stupid, or do you not recognize what summer homework looks like?"

"**Home…work? What is that, something like chores?"**

"…"

Well that answered that question.

"Well… since the call went through and you seem ok, then I guess it's fine for now. I was just testing something."

At this moment it was most likely that Index was tilting his head in confusion.

"**What were you trying to test?"**

"Nothing really. I'm hanging up."

With that, Kamijou hit the red button on her phone and slid it into her pocket with a sigh.

"… You're much to relaxed, you know that right?"

The words of the red haired magician cut deep into Kamijou's self-esteem.

"C-Come on. You were complaining about the stairs earlier, so I just thought-"

"It's fine if you wanted to do that, but you weren't prepared at all if the enemy came to attack us. I was expecting this, but it still is a bit… disheartening."

Kamijou gritted her teeth in mild annoyance.

"Come on… The only reason you're saying that is because you're jealous!"

"…"

Kamijou had expected some sort of retort or denial. But all she received was utter silence.

"You… would not be lying…"

"…"

Kamijou was silent.

She may have wanted to question the girl in front of her, but something was holding her back.

Styx rubbed the back of her head and sighed.

"It may have just have been because what you said earlier… about me not being human…that might be why I'm thinking like this."

The girl looked up at the ceiling and sighed again.

"I had given up…"

That was what that girl said.

"I had given up on ever being anything to Index besides a person who constantly erases his memories. I felt that I would simply live my life constantly 'helping' him to live and being his enemy. Somewhere along the line, I forgot how to be a human."

Kamijou still remained silent. She still could not talk in the face of this girl spilling her guts out to her.

"I forgot how to be a human…so I don't deserve to be anything like that to him. As long as I can protect him from harm… As long as I can save his smile… Then everything will be alright with me."

"… But that doesn't take your feelings in to account now, does it?"

Instead of getting angry or confrontational with Kamijou, Styx sighed and turned back to the stairs.

"It doesn't matter what I feel. I'm not the only one who has these feelings. Tons of people have wanted to be with him, either as his lover, teacher, sister, or just friend, and everyone who has tried has been met with the same feelings of failure. You're the only one who escaped that feeling."

Styx walked toward the stairs and Kamijou could feel the jealousy ossing off of her back.

"So congratulations. You were lucky to have such a bullshit power at your disposal."

Styx walked up the stairs and disappeared.

"…I'm going to die because of this, aren't I?"

Kamijou sighed this once Styx was out of earshot.

Well it wasn't like she truly didn't deserve it.

She had called Styx about not acting like what Kamijou viewed as a human, but was she truly any better?

She had forgotten everything about herself, and instead of being a normal human and being honest, she chose to don a façade.

Kamijou sighed once more and began to follow Styx.

"Ah well… It's not like I don't want to do this anyway."


	6. A Certain Trap Springing

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

After climbing up the last flight of stairs and reaching the fifth floor, Kamijou and Styx looked silently down the corridor presented to them.

Styx, who had completely memorized the diagram of this building, looked at the architecture of the hallway with a critical eye. Using the parameters and measurements stored in her brain, she looked for the opening to the secret room they were looking for.

Kamijou simply eyed one of the completely normal doors that were now like impenetrable vaults in her and Styx's current state.

"…Even if we get to the room, we might not be able to open it."

Kamijou had spoken her mind under her breath, but it seemed that Styx could hear her anyway.

"That may be true, but it's best to check out the situation before doing something stupid. We can destroy the barrier by getting rid of Trisha, but fighting our enemy with no knowledge is just going to get us killed."

"…"

Kamijou was silent when she heard the term 'get rid of'.

Sure she knew that this was a place where her very life was in danger, and that this alchemist would likely not show any mercy to them in a fight, but the thought of killing someone…

"This must be it."

Kamijou looked up and saw that the two of them were in front of the entrance of a small student cafeteria. Kamijou could only guess that since they were there, that it must have had something to do with the hidden room they were trying to find. There were many people crowded around the entrance, so, to avoid being crushed like the knight, both Kamijou and Styx rushed in during a lull in the movement.

Inside was a scene like every other cafeteria in existence.

Boys ran around and fought for the few available seats while girls carried trays and chatted while they walked. There was no way to predict the movements of the people in the cafeteria, so Kamijou and Styx proceeded carefully.

It was early evening; so many students were in the cafeteria eating dinner, opposed to going out due to the insanely low prices on food Kamijou saw.

Behind the long metal serving counter was a doorway to a kitchen, through which could be seen a large freezer crammed to one side and two metal tables. The cafeteria workers must have been on break as there was no trace of them.

Styx looked around at the normal scenery as she walked, and sighed.

"You know… Even though this is my first time dealing with a cult of non-magic origin, I would've expected them to put up some sort of image of their religion or something of that nature."

Kamijou was distracted squeezing through a gap between a girl talking with one of her sitting friends and a boy desperately scarfing down food that she did not instantly respond.

"Ohhh… You've dealt with cults before?"

Styx crouched down to navigate past the outstretched arm of an arguing boy.

"Yeah, I've had the misfortune of fighting against some cults from time to time, and each time it's just been a pain. The last one was this idiot group in Germany who had stolen material from another magician and was trying to use it to bring back some long dead pagan magician."

Kamijou's eyebrows rose as she narrowly avoided getting hit in the face.

"…Well… that must have been interesting."

Styx had an annoyed look on her face as she stood waiting for a group of students in a group.

"Hardly. There was only one real magician amongst the lot of them, and he was only there to steal those materials that had been stolen."

"Ah… So it's a lot like this situation."

Kamijou was now only feigning mild interest in the situation. It was not because she did not care, but because all of the ducking and diving she had to do along with the previous fatigue was tiring her out. Styx seemed to be having the same problem, but did not keep her from venting her frustrations.

"Of course. Cults are gathering places for idiots and those who want to use them. Promises of power and a 'once in a lifetime experience' lure idiots to the cult, while those with knowledge and experience exploit those fools. It's an age old scheme that is still incredibly effective."

Kamijou was initially silent when the two of them reached a clearing in the crowd of people. It was up against a wall where there were no tables or chairs of any kind. After a few seconds of heavy breathing, the two leaned up against the wall.

"…Well isn't this normal? This place did go through a regime change, so that might have something to do with it, but the former cult might not have had complete power in this building. I mean, you wouldn't want tons of pictures of long dead people hanging up with no context. They might have hidden all the cult stuff in the secret room."

Styx sighed as she openly rolled her eyes before returning her gaze to the bustling cafeteria.

"That's why I'm saying this. We are in the hidden room, yet there is nothing out of the ordinary."

Kamijou froze in place. The noise of the cafeteria seemed extremely distant to her.

"Wait…This?! This is the hidden room?!"

Styx rubbed the back of her head as she continued to look at the boys and girls taking up the cafetiria.

"Yeah, this makes no sense at all. Why would the Alchemist go to the effort to hide this room? It's just a normal cafeteria."

Kamijou looked around the room, feeling like her senses had increased. Every action she saw that was even the slightest bit of out of the ordinary made heart nearly stop in her chest. When no magical explosions or daggers come flying out of nowhere, she relaxed slightly but not all the way.

"Well… Is this the entire distortion? I mean are there any extra bits on it or something you might have overlooked."

"No."

Styx said this with complete and utter certainty.

"The distortions size, shape, and position are a complete match for this one's and the entrance was in the same exact place as the schematic. The fact that it is here and there are no protections over it means that the Alchemist isn't worried about us being here."

Something about the way Styx said this made Kamijou shiver. Nothing had changed in the room they were in, yet Kamijou could not help but feel a fear that had not been present a few seconds ago.

"Is-Is it possible that this distortion was set up by the cult and the Alchemist didn't bother to remove it?"

"If that were the case, then again why is it a cafeteria?"

That last response shattered all hopes of Kamijou remaining calm. A constant shiver went through her body and she began to unconsciously clench her left hand in fear.

Styx silently looked up at the ordinary cafeteria, the picture of calm and collected.

"There is no mistaking it. This is a trap."

When the last word left Styx's mouth, the entire atmosphere in the room changed. All the conversation and sound that had been going on instantly stopped, leaving it deathly silent.

This was broken by the sudden crashing of trays and cutlery, as well as the movement of chairs. Suddenly, every student who was in the room was now standing and starting blankly at Kamijou and Styx.

Styx sighed as she looked at the number of people in front of her.

"Well damn… Is this the room's protection…? I would have guessed on or two but the entire room? Guess there is no half measures for an Alchemist."

"…What the hell is this…?"

Kamijou stood there in complete shock. Even though she knew what was going on, she could not understand it at all.

Styx assumed a position that could only be a battle position.

"It's really simple. Since people of the front of the barrier can't comprehend those of the back, it's only natural to assume that they are part of the back as well."

"…Oh! Right… Of course…"

Kamijou almost wanted to laugh, but instead she smiled and flexed her left hand.

The students formed an impenetrable wall of humanity between Kamijou, Styx, and the entrance.

"We-Well what do we do now? Do we just walk past them or…"

Styx cautiously looked around the room before reaching into her robes.

"It's obvious we'll have to do something to get out of here. I doubt a defense mechanism would let us walk past it."

With a flourish, she pulled out one of her rune cards.

"So it looks like we have to fight our way through."

"Ho-Hold on!"

Styx did not make any moves to attack, but she continued to eye the unmoving students with suspicion.

"If we sit here the alchemist will come up with a counter before we can do anything. I'm not going to kill them, but I can't not do anything about it."

"That's true, but…"

"My, My… What delicious looking morsels we have here!"

Both Kamijou and Styx froze in place, the impending argument between them disappearing into thin air. Slowly, both of them turned to the source of the voice.

The one that had spoken was a rather ordinary looking girl that was near the front of the mass of students.

She had no distinguishing characteristics, and if one were to walk by her on a crowded street, no lasting impression would be left in the mind. Even a few seconds before, she had just been another face in the crowd.

However, at this point in time, there was one thing that made her different. Unlike the rest of the students which had glazed over eyes, she had a look of pure murderous glee.

"I had felt two living people on this side and had come out to see the commotion. How lucky to see two delicious looking girls in such a precarious position."

The strange girl chuckled, sending signals of pure terror down Kamijou's spine in the process, before continuing to grin at the two girls in front of her.

"So tell me… What in the world brings such beautiful specimens into my presence?"

The girl spoke in a casual voice, almost hiding the aura of death that came from all around Styx and Kamijou.

Kamijou could not even begin to speak, but Styx was able to respond almost instantly.

"We are representatives of the Anglican Church and Academy City respectively. We are here to deal with the Alchemist that has taken control of this school."

The strange girl scratched the back of her head as if she was in deep thought, but that gleeful smile never left her face.

"Alchemist… Alchemist… Could you perhaps be referring to that girl who came in here and wiped out what remained of that incredibly useless cult?"

Styx nodded and continued to focus on the girl in the center of the mass of unblinking people instead of the surrounding crowd. Kamijou briefly wondered how she was able to do this, but she was more worried about why the other students had not attacked to give it much thought.

"Yes, we wish to remove her from Academy City before she can cause any problems for the inhabitants. We were looking for any clues that could help us with that goal, when we triggered the trap in this area."

The girl began to scratch her chin and grinned wickedly.

"Hmmm… I see, I see…Well you don't have to worry about this trap. These guys will not do anything as long as I don't want them to.

"Ahhhh… That's… very gracious of you."

"Oh please, you'll make me blush. I'm only keeping them from rushing at you and tearing you apart. Its not that big of a deal."

The tone of fake embarrassment made Styx almost roll her eyes. The direness of the situation stopped her and instead she bowed.

"Well I thank you for your help anyway. Now if you could let us out of here, we would like to be on our way."

"Really? You are in that much of a hurry?"

The perfectly ordinary girl tilted her head in a fake questioning gesture while the same sickening smile on her face.

"If you run off right now, you will most surely die. In fact, even if you learned all you could about your enemy, which is very little I must say, you will still have no luck fighting them."

"Be that as it may, it is my mission to get rid of this alchemist. If we can't find any hints then I guess we'll just have to wing it."

"Hmmm…"

The girl began to scratch her chin, a grin slowly growing on her face.

"Hmmm… I guess I could give you a hint as to what the Alchemist is doing if you want…but it will cost you."

Styx looked around her and sighed.

"Well I don't think we are in a position to refuse, and if we can get out of here faster, fine."

The perfectly ordinary girl laughed, before gesturing to the crowd around her.

From the mass of bodies, one of the people handed the girl a kitchen knife. At the same time another perfectly ordinary student laid down on the ground between the girl and both Styx and Kamijou.

"Now let's see here… how should we do this…?"

The girl waved the knife around as if it was some sort of conductors baton, that almost inhuman smile stretched across her face.

Styx was silent for a few seconds of this, but then sighed.

"You should really turn around for this."

"Huh?"

Kamijou did not know if she was talking to her, and was about to ask her if she was when the perfectly ordinary girl laughed.

"Ah to hell with it! Let's go all the way then!"

With that, the girl stabbed the other student in the chest.

"…Eh?"

Kamijou stood there, transfixed as the perfectly ordinary girl moved the blade up and down and across the student's body, splattering flesh and blood all over herself.

Styx had a look of only mild annoyance at what she saw, while Kamijou suddenly felt herself feeling extremely sick.

"Is there any point to this, or are you just doing this for fun?"

The perfectly ordinary girl paused her work to hold up a gore splattered finger.

"Now hold on. It may seem a bit random, but trust me it will be worth it."

Kamijou felt herself shaking looking at the sight. With the nimbleness of someone who had been trained the girl moved the knife along the skin, separating it from the body. Gore and blood covered the girl's entire front, yet she did not seem to care enough to be taken away from her work.

Kamijou looked away from the open chest and toward what remained of the face. For a brief moment, she locked eyes with the student.

It was when she did that she realized that the eyes weren't dim or lacking any movement at all.

They were bright and moving.

Kamijou felt her stomach upturn, and she instantly threw up.

Both the girl and Styx turned toward Kamijou, Styx with a look of pity, the girl with an ear to ear smile.

"Oh what's the matter? Girly can't stand the sight of blood?"

Kamijou wiped the bile and vomit from her mouth, and shot the girl a look of pure rage. The girl faked shivered in response.

"Oh nice look you have there. I hope that spirit lasts for a good long while."

The way she said it would have caused Kamijou to shiver, if she wasn't walking toward the girl with her left fist clenched tighter than she thought possible.

In her rage filled state, Kamijou felt a hand grip her wrist. Looking behind her, she saw Styx was holding her back.

From in front of her, the perfectly ordinary girl laughed and returned to her work.

"Make sure you keep science girl there on a short leash. We don't want her to mess anything up now do we?"

Styx paid no mind to the girl and instead focused on Kamijou, her expression saying not to do anything.

Kamijou was about to punch Styx in the face and yell that the person was still alive when the girl spoke up again.

"And there we go! We are done! Now just to pull it out…"

Both Kamijou and Styx turned their attention to the girl and the body.

"Well I'll be damned…"

Kamijou felt her knees weaken at the sight she saw.

"So what do you think? Is this a big enough clue?"

The perfectly normal girl pressed her blood splattered cheek against what would have been the skull of the body.

Instead of the pure white bone that should have been there, the skeleton was blood red. It gave off a strange metallic sheen and dark red pentagrams all over it.

Kamijou felt as though she would throw up again.

"What-What is that?"

Styx sighed and kneeled down close enough to observe the strange skeleton like object that had been in a human body.

"This? This is an Akuma."


	7. A Certain Battle's Beginning

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

"Hmmm…Muscles… Nerves… Even the hair follicles are in proper order. How in the world do people even do this? Not even the best medical magicians have accomplished such a complete skeleton replacement without any scars… Nor with anyone living now that I recall."

"Ke, Ke. Well I wouldn't expect someone to be able to. Considering how this was made, I was certain you would be surprised."

"…"

Kamijou sighed as she stood just outside the sphere of conversation. She did not want to be anywhere near that… thing, but being near the other students with those extremely blank gazes did nothing to calm her.

The perfectly normal girl stood up and wiped her hands on her skirt, smearing blood all over it, as well as wiped the sweat from her brow, also spreading the gore and flesh to her face.

"So, was this a big enough hint for you? If it's not then you don't have much of a chance anyway."

"…"

Styx silently took a few more seconds looking over the skeleton, its forcibly abandoned flesh, and even the blood of the student before rising with a sigh.

"Well… it doesn't really clear up anything by itself, but it does give me an idea. If you would permit me a question to clarify the situation?"

The girl umm'ed and ahh'ed for a few seconds before smiling.

"Well I don't see why not."

Styx's gaze slowly went around the room, scanning every face of every student in the room before asking her question.

"So…How many other people have had this same modification done to them?"

The perfectly normal girl smiled.

"How many? Hmmm… That is a hard question for me to answer. I might know a lot, but I don't know everything. I haven't interviewed every person in the world."

Styx sighed in what could be called expected annoyance.

"Fine lets simplify the question."

Styx and the perfectly ordinary girl locked gazes.

"How many people in this building have that modification?"

The perfectly ordinary girl scratched her chin and looked on at Styx in amusement.

"Hmmm… Now that is a much easier question for me to answer, though my information might not be the most accurate. Now lets see if I can remember…"

The perfectly normal girl tilted from side to side, a constant smile on her face as she continued to toy with Styx. After growing bored, she finally answered.

"Well… last time I bothered to check on the number in this building…The number of people with the Akuma modification that is… Was around 5,000."

Kamijou felt a shiver go up her spine as Styx sighed again in what could be called expected annoyance

"5,000 eh? That is quite a surprise. I had assumed that this city could not provide enough bodies to fulfill the alchemist's needs, but I guess I was wrong."

For the first time ever since this conversation began, Kamijou saw the girl become genuinely confused.

"Bodies? Why in the world would you need…?"

The confusion disappeared as fast as it had come, leaving her with a look of understanding.

"Ahhh. I see. That must be it."

The girl shrugged and sighed as her grin returned to her face.

"Well what should I expect? When even history is destroyed, remembering one group of people is next to impossible."

"U-Uhm…!"

Having finally found her voice again, Kamijou was cautious on how she used it.

"Wha-What are you talking about? Is there something that we don't know about?"

The girl scratched her chin, her grin now fixed on her face.

"Oh its nothing. It's just you have a huge misunderstanding on your part. You don't have any idea about what you are getting into!"

Styx and Kamijou briefly looked at each other. There was a long moment of silence before Styx mustered a response.

"Well could you please tell us what we are misunderstanding? If we are to fight against the Alchemist, we need to know as much as possible."

The perfectly ordinary girl sighed and looked at the two of them with what could only be called a look of pity.

"Well I can tell you that the way you think of Akuma is all wrong. But that is wrong as well. It's more like you don't understand them."

The perfectly ordinary girl reached down and grabbed the skeletons gore slicked head.

"I can tell you one thing for certain. This guy was not made using a dead body."

Kamijou was silent for a few seconds.

"Well if it wasn't made with a dead body, how was it made? Aren't Akuma made using dead bodies?"

"Khe Khe Khe!"

That laugh made the even the ends of Kamijou's hair shiver.

"Seems like science girl can't take a hint, eh?! So tell me magical girl have you figured it out?"

Kamijou looked back at Styx, who was remaining silent with a look of utter distaste on her face.

"I'd like to say that I didn't know what was going on… But Kamijou… Akuma need bodies to be created."

The way Styx worded that confused Kamijou to no end.

"That's what I'm saying. If they are made with bodies then…"

At the realization set in to Kamijou, Styx sighed.

"That's right. If it doesn't use a dead body, then it is only natural to assume that it was made using a live one."

"Khe, Khe, Khe!"

The girls laugh brought the oppressive attitude of the room to a head. Kamijou could not help but shiver, while Styx remained perfectly calm. The girl grabbed the top of the skeletons head and pulled it back up.

"Exactly! These Akuma were made using a living human bodies! All these people you see around you are human beings just like you!"

Kamijou felt her stomach churn yet again, but she was able to keep her vomit down at this time to question the girl.

"But how is that possible? First off Styx said that Akuma were made using bodies, so why did she get that wrong? Furthermore, how can these people be controlled so easy?"

"Kamijou… both of those can be explained through magic."

Styx's voice was still unnaturally calm, but Kamijou could detect a faint quiver.

"My magic style uses rune cards to produce fire, yet there are magic styles that use other means to create fire. This is the same situation. There is a recorded style that uses dead bodies to create Akuma, but it isn't impossible for there to be a style that uses living ones."

"Khe, Khe. Exactly Miss Magic. There are two ways of making Akuma, one which uses dead bodies and one that uses live ones. Now how about you explain how these people are controlled?

Styx ignored the girls goading and focused instead on Kamijou.

"And do you remember those Ophelia runes from this morning? Well I assume this is something similar to that. Magic can not only direct people attention away, but… also make them forget about pain."

"Khe, Khe. Exactly, Exactly! Full points Miss Magic! That explains everything!"

"Che! How the hell do you know so much?! You're no magician. I could tell that the moment I laid eyes on you. So that begs the question, who the hell are you?"

"Hmmm? Me?"

The girl pointed at herself, her voice tinged with confusion, but her face still adorned with that hideous smile.

"Well its quite a simple answer behind that. I was the leader of that stupid cult, a bad leader mind you, but a leader none the less."

Styx and Kamijou froze where they stood. Something about this girls aura had changed when she had finished that sentence, filling the room with her murderous glee.

"H-How in the world did you survive the destruction of the cult then? I would've thought that the alchemist would have been more thorough."

"Khe, Khe. You don't have to worry about that; if it wasn't for the Alchemist you would have run into at least 10 members of the former cult. The Innocent Heart was very lax in his hunt for us, but the Alchemist set him on the path to murdering everyone but me."

The aura given off by the girl was strong, but not strong enough to keep Kamijou from getting curious.

"The Innocent Heart? Who is that?"

The perfectly ordinary girl's countenance changed to one of utter disgust for the first time.

"Yeah some unlikeable prick he is. I doubt you've seen him before. Silver hair, wears an all-black outfit, oh and has this ridiculous scar on the left side of his face."

Kamijou instantly recognized all those characteristics. That person was the reason she was here after all.

"You mean Gray Matter right?"

In that instant the aura in the room turned from murderous glee to murderous zeal. It was such a complete and total conversion that Kamijou briefly wondered, before she felt the fingers tighten around her throat, that if it had been there all this time.

Once she was done wondering, she felt her feet lift up off the floor and she struggled to loosen the grip on her throat.

Looking through her partially closed eyes, she saw the girls face. It was not decorated with a smile, or a grin, or even a look of annoyance.

It was one of pure and unaltered hatred.

"Don't you dare call that boy by that name! There is no way… There is no way that brat has any power to control us!"

Kamijou's vision began to dim as the grip around her throat tightened, her breathing becoming more and more difficult to regulate.

The instant she thought she was going to pass out, a fireball shot through the area the girl had been standing a few seconds previous.

"Maybe I should calm down. Getting my hands dirty with your blood would be stupid. After all…"

As Kamijou looked up, her throat free of the vice like grip of the girl, and saw that the girl was smiling again.

"Miss magic over there might get even more angry, and might try to hurt me."

Kamijou looked over at Styx and saw that she had one of her rune cards out and pointed at the perfectly ordinary girl.

"If you are quite done going off the deep end, we would like to leave without killing you."

The perfectly ordinary girl nodded and held her hands out in a welcoming gesture.

"Of course, Of course. I also wish to leave this place in one piece. After all, I survived this long. It would be a waste to die to you."

Kamijou could almost see the sparks flying between the two of girls as she stood up.

"Oh by the way miss magic, there still is the matter of payment for the hint I gave you."

Styx who had been listening silently all this time, nodded her head.

"Well once we defeat the alchemist we will do our upmost to help you get out of here. Just wait here while we-"

The perfectly ordinary girl held up a still gore splattered finger to silence Styx.

"Yes, Yes that's all nice and all. But there is an issue of my payment."

"As I said once we beat the alchemist we will get you out of here, then-"

Again, the perfectly ordinary girl used her gore splattered finger to silence Styx.

"You don't need to worry about all that. The payment I want can be given to me right here, right now."

Styx was silent for a few more seconds, then she sighed, giving up.

"Fine. What in the world do you want?"

The perfectly ordinary girl smiled and snapped her fingers.

***SHING***

Kamijou barely managed to move her head out of the way when the skeleton stood up and lunged at her, swinging its bladed arm at her.

The blade did find another mark however, cutting a large gash on the upper part of her right arm.

Kamijou fell to the ground, just when the skeleton raised its hand for a second attack. Kamijou held up her left hand to defend herself.

"Kenaz."

A fireball launched toward the skeleton and completely erased it from existence.

"Hmmm…Seems that they aren't as resistant to magic as I thought."

Several cards were spread out over the area surrounding Styx, and the smoky smell of burning surrounded her.

"Now then could you tell me why you did that?"

Styx's tone had not changed, but one could tell she was angry. It not one could see or feel, but just knew.

Somehow she gave off a stronger aura than the girl at that moment.

However this did not bother the girl at all, who simply smiled at Styx.

"Well it's simple. I want to kill you so that's why I did that."

Styx clicked her tongue before pulling out a cigarette and putting it in her mouth.

"So killing two people who would gladly save is more important than getting out of here? I must say you have some fucked up priorities."

The girl continued to smile even though she was clearly being insulted.

"Hmmm… People have told me that before. But whatever. I haven't killed someone in a good long while, and with two pretty much defenseless people here, I can barely resist."

Styx sighed.

"It doesn't really matter to me what you want to do, but attacking us won't earn you anything but an early grave."

The girl laughed.

"I see. Well that won't really matter to you since you'll be dead."

That was the last thing the girl said to them.

The perfectly normal girl raised her hand and smiled.

"Kill them."

At once every single student that had been standing there quietly dove at both Styx and Kamijou.

Kamijou was at this point going crazy, but Styx just sighed.

With the look of complete calm, cards began flying out of Styx's robes and plastered in the area around her.

"_Blinding Fire."_

A flash of light was the last thing Kamijou saw before she was completely blinded.

* * *

"Good god that was a bit exciting."

As Kamijou's vision came back to her slowly she found herself outside of the cafeteria, Styx standing over her with a completely relaxed look on her face.

Directly in front of both of them was smoldering ruins of the cafeteria entrance. Some of Styx's rune cards were on the chunks of rubble, clueing Kamijou in to what happened while she had been blinded.

It was simple. Styx had blinded the wave of crazed modified students, forced her way out of the room with Kamijou in tow, and then destroyed the entrance to prevent anyone from following.

It was a quick and easy plan that saved both of them and it wasn't something she should be angry about.

"Did… Did you kill any of them?"

Yet somehow she found time to worry about the people who had just attacked them.

Styx must have felt the same worry, because she didn't instantly berate Kamijou for thinking that.

"No… at least I don't think so. I used _Blinding Light _so that shouldn't have caused any damage, but when I destroyed the entrance…"

A Styx trailed off Kamijou reached out to touch the rubble.

Just as a cut and bloody hand reached out from under it.

"…Gyahh!"

Kamijou jumped back just as more and more hands began to reach out from the rubble.

With one final push the wall of rubble came down.

"Well looks like you're up."

"…Eh?"

Kamijou looked into the corridor behind her, where Styx had just been.

Styx's back was a considerable distance from where Styx had been.

"Eh?!"

Kamijou turned back toward the former wall of rubble to see the first torn and mangled human body rise up and look around. She could distinctly see the blood red skeleton underneath the persons skin.

Kamijou did not even attempt to stand in the face of these creatures. She simply turned and ran.

It took only a second of panicked running for Kamijou to catch up to Styx.

Styx, even though she had expected Kamijou to act like a shield, did not seem surprised to see her running with her.

That did not stop her from berating Kamijou's actions.

"You know your hand blocked the Dragon's Breath two weeks ago, right? These things aren't as tough as I thought they would be, so you could probably take out a few of them."

"Oh I'm sorry. I was too worried about being mobbed to think straight!"

Styx sighed but did not stop running.

From behind her Kamijou could hear the hurried footsteps of the humans that had been stuck in the cafeteria.

"Che… so what now?"

Styx looked behind her to see the mob of cut up and bloody bodies charging after them.

"I think that spell that has power over the immediate area is similar to my Inncentious, with a core somewhere near here. If I can find and destroy it then they might come to their senses, though they might also be in pain once that happens."

Kamijou felt a stab of guilt for a brief second before focusing on her current situation.

"Well how are we going to find this core? Will we be able to while running around being chased by a horde? How are we even going to attack it?"

Kamijou and Styx reached the stairwell as the mass of cut up and bloody students started to run toward them.

Styx looked behind her at the charging mass with a yet another sigh.

"Well… there is one thing we can do. It's a bit risky, but I'm certain it will work."

"WHY THE HELL ARE WE TALKING ABOUT IT THEN?! HURRY UP AND USE IT!"

Styx sighed again, and then pushed Kamijou down the stairwell.

"…Eh…?"

That was all Kamijou as she tumbled down the stairs, eventually ending upside down on one of the flats in the stairwell.

Looking up, Kamijou saw Styx frantically running up the stairs just as the skeletons reached the entrance of the stairwell.

"You…YOU HOLY BITCH!"

Kamijou was not yelling out simply because she did not understand what had happened, rather it was because she knew exactly what was going on.

If the entire area's mana within Misawa Cram was colored red for the alchemists color, then any magic used by Styx would color the area blue. She had yet to use magic however so she was still able to move around without being detected.

Kamijou was in an entirely different position. Instead of turning an area a different color, Kamijou's ability erased the color. And, unlike Styx's ability, Kamijou's ability could not be turned off, making her like a giant walking transmitter.

So, to summarize, Styx's plan was incredibly simple. She simply got rid of the walking transmitter so that she could move around freely. It was an incredibly simple plan that left Kamijou with the rather unfortunate end of the deal.

As if to add insult to injury, the entire mob of students charged down the staircase at her, ignoring the stairway Styx had gone up.

"Che… God dammit!"

Kamijou jumped up and ran down the staircase. She could not do anything about what was going on except follow Styx's obvious plan and be the bait for her.

Kamijou felt herself growing a bit tired from all the running she had been doing, and her vision was slightly blurry, but she still managed to dodge out of the grasp of the mob and ran into the corridor on the floor below.

After a few more seconds of panic and adrenaline, when Kamijou looked behind her, she saw none of the mob anywhere behind her.

Even though she didn't feel completely safe, and knew that the mob could come around the corner at any minute, Kamijou took the safety time she now had to fall to the ground and clutch the gash in her right arm.

It had been hurting her in the normal everyday sort of way when it had been sliced open, but now it was like the pain was throbbing throughout her entire body. Her vision began to dim from the pain, and her entire body felt fatigued.

When she cautiously looked down at the gash, she saw several black stars forming around the area.

"Wha…What is this?"

"Ah. It looks like it's starting to affect you."

Kamijou jumped when she heard that voice, and looked up to see the perfectly ordinary girl from the cafeteria standing there patiently. There could be no way that the girl could have been there, the distance she would have had to run was to great for it to be possible. Yet she stood there like it was the most normal thing.

The perfectly ordinary girl was also not as ordinary as she once was either.

"Wha- Wha-"

Kamijou could not help but stutter at the sight in front of her, it was that horrific.

The girl looked down at her now abnormal right hand and smiled.

"Oh do you like it? I had wondered if I should transform fully, but didn't because I found it a bit tiresome."

The girls entire right arm had transformed into a clawed, menacing contraption. Its claws were pure black and about the size of Kamijou's head, while the arm was about twice the size of the girls entire body.

"Hmmm…"

The girl began to scratch her chin with her untransformed hand.

"I wonder if I went a bit overboard going after you when you are going to die anyway. It would have made more sense to go and chase down miss magic. Though I might be able to kill both of you either way."

The now abnormal girl looked up at the ceiling, and Kamijou got the idea that she was looking in the direction of Styx's current position.

"Wha- What do you mean I'm going to die?! Do you think that a scratch like this will be enough to kill someone?"

Granted Kamijou did not feel her very best at the moment, but she definitely did not feel like she was going to expire from such a gash.

The girl tilted her head in what would be confusion if her face did not have a smile on it.

"Oh? You aren't worried at all, are you? Well then… let me clue you in to a secret."

In an instant, the now abnormal girl was a mere centimeter from Kamijou's face. With her untransformed hand, she put one of her fingers directly on one of the stars over the gash on Kamijou's arm.

That single action instantly lit Kamijou's entire body on fire with pain. Kamijou curled up into a fetal position as the girl laughed over her.

"Khe, Khe! Still calm now miss science?"

When the pain calmed down, Kamijou gritted her teeth and moved into a sitting position.

"What the hell did you just do to me?"

Again the girls face appeared a centimeter away from Kamijou's

"Oh! You still don't understand? Those stars are the herald of your doom! They are symptoms of a toxin that was laced over that poor level 0's entire skeleton! It's progressing a bit slower than usual, but once your entire body is covered by them, you will be turned into dust like that which you came from!"

Kamijou suddenly felt her brain suddenly stop.

"…Dust? What are you talking about dust?! How in the world is that possible?!"

The girl cackled at the top of her lungs.

"Khe, Khe, Khe! What? Can't you handle that knowledge? Well you don't have to worry about that! The only decision you have to make right now is whether or not you want me to kill you or if I should leave you for toxin to do you in?"

"…"

Kamijou was silent for a few seconds in the face of this girl as the words slowly tried to reach her brain.

When the words did reach and register in her brain, Kamijou shot up from her sitting position, instantly regretting her decision as the pain began surging throughout her body.

"Kill me?! Why in the world would I let you kill me!?"

The put on what would be considered an innocent look under normal situations, which now looked like a mocking one.

"Wouldn't you rather die a painless death rather than one squirming around and crying out for your mother? If you let me kill you then I'll be certain to make it as painless as possible."

Another surge of pain blinded Kamijou for a second, and when she came back she could see the unnatural was smiling ear to ear looking at her pain.

Despite the aura of unnaturalness surrounding her and the pain raging throughout her body, Kamijou could not suppress the urge to smile.

"Sorry I don't think I'll need you're assistance to die today. Or any day really. I think I'll pass on dying today altogether."

There was a silence between the two girls that seemed to last years. The abnormal girl stood there with a look of blank shock, while Kamijou looked like an errant gust of wind would knock her down.

After a few more moments that felt like days, the abnormal girl sighed.

"Well… Looks like you are **dead** set on ruining my fun. I might have made your **death **painless, well relatively painless… On second thought let's not lie to each other. I would have made you suffer before you **expired, **no hard feelings of course."

The abnormal girl shot Kamijou a smile, one that Kamijou did not even struggle to return.

"No hard feelings taken."

"Ah so refreshing to find someone who understands my need to murder. It's a pity…"

The abnormal girl swung her clawed transformed arm out in front of her with a look that pretty much cemented her killing intent.

"That I'm going to have to kill you!"

That was the last words the two of them shared.

Kamijou quickly judged the distance between the two of them as about 7 or 8 meters, and tried to come up with a strategy for fighting against a person who had a reach of about 4 or 5 meters.

The two of them waited for some unknown sign to charge at each other, and when they reached it, the charge of the two began.

Now Kamijou was just a normal high school student who had no idea of tactics or battle plans, but she knew that if she wanted to escape from this place without being in danger with each step she took. The very fact that the abnormal girl had charged at Kamijou showed that it was completely expected for her to run away.

The abnormal girl, who had expected Kamijou to run away, did not seem to be surprised at all, and at 4 meters between the two girls, she swung her clawed monstrosity of an arm horizontally.

The corridor was rather large and allowed for the girl to do that, but it also was enough to let Kamijou duck under the girls attack.

This left her with a pain so great that her vision darkened to the point she could not see. So essentially she would be running blind for the rest of the way.

She took a deep breath and clenched her left hand into a fist before charging forward even more.

She was stopped when she felt a grip on her collar.

"My, aren't you reckless."

After hearing that voice, Kamijou's sightless world experienced a huge amount of movement and sound, ending with the person holding on her collar tossing her onto the ground.

When her vision came back Kamijou looked at the scene in front of her in shock.

The area in front of the abnormal girl had become an area completely ruined by spears coming out of the girl's abdomen.

The abnormal girl smiled at Kamijou's savior.

"Well, Well. I didn't expect you to come out and save someone."

Kamijou's savior chuckled at the abnormal girl and flexed their gloved left hand.

"Of course I would save a person if they are in danger, especially a lady. I am a gentleman hero after all."

Kamijou looked at her hero and tried to thank and question her savior, but another outburst of pain incapacitated her, almost causing her to black out.

Her hero, with a perception of that was almost akin to mind reading, turned to her and smiled.

"I think it is time for you to go to sleep for now and recover. We can continue our talk once you wake up."

Kamijou's savior removed the glove on their left hand.

"Wha-?"

Kamijou saw that her saviors left hand was abnormal, but before she could comment it she blacked out when her saviors hand touched her forehead.

"Sleep well. You should be fine when you wake up."

That was what Allen Walker, Gray Matter, said as Kamijou drifted off into unconsciousness.


	8. A Certain Detour

**This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.**

* * *

As her rune cards gently floated around her like sakura petals, Styx looked around the ordinary corridor a floor above where she had departed from Kamijou's company.

Since she was a magician she of course found it easy to detect the flow of mana for the spell that was controlling the students and follow it back to the hidden core. Even without being told the exact specifications of a spell, like she had been, even a novice could track a spell they think is there, regardless of where it was hidden.

"But to really call this hidden… seems a bit stupid to me…"

Styx sighed as she looked at the wall in front of her, from which she could feel the source of the magical flow.

Since the outer side of the barrier was completely immune from any action of those on the back, opening so much as a plastic bag on the outside of the barrier would be impossible, much less destroying a perfectly solid wall. By hiding something within a perfect wall, one could make a perfect defense for it.

Styx a few more seconds looking at the wall in front of her before stretching, and pulling out another rune card.

"Now then… All I've got to do now is destroy the core…"

However in the human world, there was no such thing as a perfect wall. Errors in building or decay due to time caused gaps to form in any structure built. And even if the gap was even a millimeter large, Styx could destroy the core of the spell without even destroying the wall.

"…Kenaz…"

A small fireball launched off of the rune card held in her hand and forced its way into an almost inconspicuous gap in the wall.

After a few seconds, Styx sighed as she felt the unseen spell core was destroyed. With the core out of the way, the students who were under the control of the spell would be freed from it, giving them control of their senses back. Of course any pain that resulted from body modification would also be felt.

Styx's mind briefly wandered back to the sight she had seen in the cafeteria. From the looks of the students body initially, he did not seem to have any scars, so people without any damage to their body shouldn't feel any pain. However the knowledge that they were different might cause some psychological problems, but in a city where difference was whole heartedly accepted, that was less of a problem than the pain. Heck some people might enjoy their newfound resilience.

"That would be a nice world… but even the so called resilience of the Akuma is being called into question here."

Styx looked down at her feet with a look a belated disgust evident on her face.

At Styx's feet were the broken, semi-conscious bodies of 'modified' students she had run into on this level of the building. She had taken precautions to not harm these brainwashed students, so she focused on incapacitating them by breaking their arms and legs so they could not move. She had thought that it would have taken a lot of effort but the ease that an Akuma skeleton broke reminded her of a normal human one.

She still had no idea if the mob of modified students had been pacified by her doing this, and the initial findings showed her nothing…

"… I'm a horrible human being, aren't I?"

Styx sighed when she gave that evaluation about herself. Sure she had taken into account the feelings of the people she had just broken, as well as those who would be out from under the control of the spell, but the way she had just evaluated how the other humans involved would be was rather cold.

It wasn't like she wasn't thinking out of line for a magician, in fact she would be considered humane for a magic user. Most magicians would have killed these bystanders for getting in their way and chalked it up as 'collateral damage.' Styx had always found this distasteful and avoided killing people when it was unneeded.

Now however, she was questioning even that rule she had. Was it right to hurt people if they were fighting against their will? She knew it was the only way to do her job, but was it the best way? Was there a way that avoided conflict with all but the primary target? Was there…

"That girl… has me thinking about some annoying things…"

Styx bit into the end of her cigarette in annoyance.

She was a magician for god's sake. She was supposed to be a person who could regularly make the impossible possible, yet she was getting hung up on a simple set of words. It wasn't like a magician at all to act like this while in a battle. However…

"_Are you even human?"_

"Damn it. That girl is making me think about some really annoying things."

"You are very relaxed on the battlefield, aren't you? I could train you to be more serious, but there is no guarantee that you will be alive at the end of it."

Styx did not even jump or make any movement of surprise upon hearing the voice which had suddenly appeared in the hallway she was in.

She had known and fully expected that something like this would happen. Like she had evaluated before, any magician, novice or monster, would have been able to find the core to such a sloppily hid spell. And no magician like the alchemist would allow for a spell to be this obvious unless there was a reason.

In short, this was a trap.

The voice that spoke, which was clearly a woman's, was silent for a few seconds, as if looking at something, before continuing to talk.

"It seems that your friend has been caught already. They will die as things are going, but I feel that you have no way of saving them at this moment."

Styx could not help but chuckle at that statement.

"Please. If that girl could die to one of your traps, then she should have died sooner. She is much too stubborn to die."

The person on the other end of the conversation sighed.

"I don't want to say that any of the things you have encountered up until now were traps I laid out specifically to kill intruders, but I guess you wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway with how things are going."

Styx, tired of this anonymity, turned to face the owner of the voice and was met with the sight of her enemy.

Trisha Elric was clearly a child of a mixture of races, with clear German and Chinese heritage in her face. She stood at least a head taller that Styx and had long straight black hair that went down her back in a plain and simple style. She wore a white dress shirt with a black tie and a short professional skirt with a pair of pantyhose and heels. On her right middle finger was a ring with a red gemstone inlayed in it.

She stood there with an air of regality and calmness that belayed no concern at all in the current situation.

Styx's gaze lazily scanned the area around the two of them, showing the same amount of concern toward her opponent as she received.

"So tell me, oh enemy of mine… what sort of traps did you lay out for me here? Since you took the time and effort to lure me here with such an obvious trap I would expect it to be something particularly nasty."

The alchemist, Trisha Elric, looked at Styx with a fairly uncaring glare, like a king looking down at an insect.

"I'm sure that you can realize that if you are looking for traps now, that there are either no traps in the general area or you are a complete idiot. I'm unsure as to what you expected of me, but I do not require any form of trickery to win my battles."

Styx heaved a heavy sigh.

It was true that she could not sense any sort of trap or magical signature of any kind, but that did not set her at ease. In fact it set all of her senses on full alert.

Like Styx had told Kamijou, alchemy was generally considered a more tactical magic style that focused more on planning and execution than actual fighting, so for an alchemist to even be on par with Styx in a straight up fight, they would need to have and endless bag of gimmicks. The fact that there was not one was beyond strange.

Trisha, not knowing what Styx was thinking, still did not seem to care about Styx's presence more than if she was just an insect. She casually moved a strand of her hair behind her ear, revealing a plain silver earring.

"How about we finish this quickly? I have more research to do, so I do not have the time to waste on your Inncontieus."

Styx did not flinch when her enemy name dropped her most powerful spell. In battles between magicians, knowledge was power after all.

Instead she simply sighed almost apologetically.

"I'm sorry to say it, but my Innocentius is busy off somewhere else at the moment guarding a house. But don't worry; I can beat you just as easy without it."

Trisha Elric's was still for a moment, then a slight smile began to stretch across her face.

"Beat, you say? That is a very interesting choice of words you chose. Beat…"

As the Alchemist felt the word up with her mouth, Styx realized her blunder.

"Because if any other magician were placed in the same situation, they would rather have said kill."

"Che."

Styx chewed on the end of her cigarette in annoyance. In the meantime the alchemist stretched her hand out like in a welcoming gesture.

"If you are not prepared you kill, then why did you venture onto the battlefield? If you are this wish washy about your feelings then this will be an easy fight. 20… no, 15 seconds at most."

"…Yeah, Yeah miss Fake keep talking."

Trisha Elric stood there in silence for a few seconds, then she put on a fairly confused look.

"Miss Fake? What in the world are you referring to?"

Styx looked at the woman in front of her with a look of utter annoyance.

"Come on do I have to lay it out for you? If you don't know that much then you didn't put much research into 'our' relationship."

The alchemist was silent for even longer now, but after a time she managed to reply.

"I do not understand what in the world you are talking about, but when I think about it I don't need to."

The alchemist walked over to the wall and flexed her hand.

"After all you will be dead soon anyway."

With that the alchemist punched through the wall.

"…Huh?"

Styx was at a loss of words, not because she didn't know what was going on, but rather she knew exactly was going on and could not accept it.

As stated before, one could not interact with something on the outside of the barrier if one was on the inside. Since the wall, which Styx had already checked to make sure, was on the outside of the barrier, that would mean that…

"You bitch… Are you fighting me from the outside of the barrier!?"

The alchemist turned to face Styx her arm still imbedded into the wall, a smile on her face.

"Are you stupid? Why would I fight you from the other side of the barrier? I would not be able to gather any data that way. I simply made an exception as the barriers controller that allowed me to punch through the wall."

The alchemist slowly smiled as Styx scowled at her. Styx knew that it was easy to make exceptions for spells, but the very fact that this woman could do it pissed her off.

The alchemist began to flex her arm that was within the wall and her smile grew even wider.

"Let me ask you a question. Do you know how temperature works?"

Styx raised a questioning eyebrow.

Styx only had only the layman's idea of temperature that being it was a measure of how hot or cold it was.

The alchemist did not wait for Styx to answer, however, and began to explain.

"You see temperature is a measure of how fast atoms and particles are moving, which is what we humans determine as either hot or cold. What we humans think of as heat is the fast moving of atoms, while what we perceive as cold is the slow movement of atoms."

Styx could almost feel a question mark over her head as she listened. Like Kamijou, who knew a lot about science but little about magic, Styx knew a lot about magic, but absolutely nothing but the bare minimum of science.

The alchemist continued on, Styx's cluelessness causing her to get more and more ecstatic.

"Also depending on the temperature, different items change their state. Like… I don't know, Water."

The second she said that word, the wall to Styx's side exploded outward as a torrent of water came spewing out of it.

Styx instantly threw up her arms to shield her head, but she knew it was useless.

The barrier made it impossible for things inside of it to affect things outside of it. If water from the outside of the barrier fell down of Styx who was inside the barrier, the force of the barrier would crush Styx. She could have tried to run away, but her top movement speed was not very fast.

All Styx could do at that moment was…

Get splashed in the face with a torrent of water.

The alchemist, perfectly dry, pulled her arm out of the wall with a smile on her face.

"If you assumed that water was on the outside of the barrier, you do not have to worry. If I had done that none of the experiments I keep on this side would be able to move around, seeing as how some of atmosphere is made of water vapor. Aren't you glad that I am considerate to my test subjects."

Styx was deathly silent.

She was being toyed with.

She knew that, so she tried her best to contain her outrage.

"By the way, if you wish to know how I did that, it was because I increased the temperature of the pipes which in turn increased the temperature of the water, causing the water to expand into vapor. The quick burst of pressure broke the pipe open, and then I rapidly cooled the vapor so that it would be in a liquid form again."

Styx remained silent. It was all she could do remain calm in the face of the overwhelming overconfidence this woman was giving off.

One wrong move and she would be in a disadvantageous position.

"Really now, you should be very embarrassed, but I can understand why you were acting so pathetic. After all, fire is always weak against water."

"…"

With one fluid movement, Styx pulled out one of her rune cards.

"I'm sure you understand that I'm going to make you bleed for doing this to me."

The alchemist chuckled and held up her other hand.

"Well then maybe you should cool your head."

After the Alchemist said that, Styx's whole body froze over.

_Huh?! She can use freezing magic!? She only supposed to know Alchemy!_

Those were the thoughts running through the now frozen Styx's brain. The Alchemist walked up to the frozen girl and patted her on the cheek.

"So have you cooled off? Getting so angry all the time is really bad for your health."

The alchemist held up the hand that patted Styx's face.

"If you thought that I could only heat up, you are sorely… or should I say coldly, mistaken. I can reduce the temperature of water vapor in the air, and can even focus it in specific places. Namely around my opponents."

The Alchemist turned her back to Styx and shrugged.

"Well it looks like you were a complete pushover. I'll be back in a bit to finish you off once I'm done cleaning up the mess you made."

Styx, even though she wanted to reach out and grab the woman, but remained calm.

With a silent cast the rune cards within her robe began to heat up and melt the ice surrounding her.

She was more than prepared for freezing spells, and had many other prepared items for many instances.

With another incantation, she summoned a blazing flame sword and swung it.

In an instant, the alchemist swung around, but instead of a surprised look on her face, a smug one was what Styx saw.

In a flash, Styx's flaming sword was dispersed, the flames rammed against the barrier clad wall.

"I see you didn't cool off at all now, did you?"

In the alchemists hand was a large sword that looked to be a two hander, but she held it with the ease of a one hander.

Styx, still annoyed at how she was being treated, annoyingly looked at the sword.

"So… Where in the world did you pull that bullshit out of? No traps my ass, you planned out everything for this."

The alchemist chuckled and waved the sword around like it was a baseball bat.

"Come on all of this was just chance. It was chance that Academy City still uses pipes that are susceptible to temperature change, and it is chance that you left some tools around for me to use."

Styx again raised a questioning eyebrow.

"What tools would you be referring to?"

The Alchemist said nothing, and pointed to the ground, which Styx almost unconsciously looked toward.

What she saw was very discomforting.

The bodies of the students who she had carefully left alive were now oddly deflated and lacking any form of structure to their bodies. It was like…

"You bitch… You stole their skeletons?!"

The alchemist stretched and looked at Styx with a pitying smile.

"Stole is such a harsh word, seeing as it was not something that was theirs to begin with. I simply reclaimed their skeletons so that I could use it for something more… practical."

With that she swung her blood red sword around and pointed it directly at Styx.

Styx remained calm as the weapon was pointed at her, and even sighed.

"Well this is going to be fun."

The alchemist chuckled to herself and held the blade in what could be considered a form.

"I hope it will be. Perhaps you can even give me a challenge."

Again Styx sighed, and after a few seconds charged forward.


End file.
